Charmed Heritage: 108 Morality Bites2: Biting Back
by StoryGirl83
Summary: Part Two: Things go from bad to worse as those from the "Charmed: Witch Hunts" reality begin to fade, literally, from view. They need to find a way to fix things fast or they will lose them forever.
1. Not All There

Morality Bites 2: Biting Back – Part 2

Sunday, February 14, 2027

Chapter One - Not All There

There was dark hair peeking out from under the covers of both of the two beds. One bed clearly had two people in it. The other bed showed signs of movement. Fingers grasped the covers, but there was something wrong. The fingers were there, but they were transparent. The fingers pushed back the covers revealing Melinda Wyatt. Her eyes were half closed. She yawned as she climbed out of bed. Her feet hit the floor and she looked around. She was wearing a long white nightgown which she had borrowed from her mother. Melinda hugged the thought to her. Her lips turned to a frown and her eyes fully opened as she looked around the unfamiliar room. All at once shock filled her eyes as she remembered the events of the previous evening.

She rushed over to the other bed and pushed back the covers revealing her cousins, Pat and Vicki Trudeau, lying back to back. She reached out her hand, again, to shake Pat awake. She froze as she finally noticed her fingers. She pulled in a shaky breath and backed up. She stared down at her hands, trembling. She stood there for several seconds barely moving before hesitantly touching her hands to her face. The feel of her fingers on her face brought some relief to her face. She reached out and touched the bedpost of the bed her cousins shared. Her fingers grasped the wood firmly despite being transparent. She reached out her hand and shook Pat's shoulder. "Pat. Wake up, Pat!"

Pat's eyes blinked open and she looked up at Melinda. Question was in her eyes. When Melinda held out her hand, Pat's eyes widened as she scrambled up into a sitting position, back against the headboard. "What on earth?!"

Melinda didn't hear her. Her own eyes were transfixed on Pat's hands. Like her own, Pat's hands were transparent. Melinda reached down and grabbed Pat's left hand, holding it up for inspection.

Pat drew in an unsteady breath. "My hand, too." At her side, she felt her sister stir, but she didn't look down. When Melinda dropped Pat's hand, Pat asked, "What's going on?"

"He said we were starting to fade," Melinda reminded her with a shaky breath. "I guess now we're starting to show it."

Pat turned to her sister and started shaking her.

Vicki wiggled, trying to avoid her. "I'm tired Pat."

"Vicki, wake up," Pat begged. "We're running out of time."

Vicki yawned and turned over. Her eyes fell on Melinda's hands. Her expression didn't change as she looked down at Pat's hands, but her thoughts did. _That's really strange. If both of them have hands that are see through . . ._ She scooted up into a sitting position and held out her hands. They, too, are transparent. She closed her eyes briefly. _Me, too. This is not good._ She gulped and opened them. "Let's find Mom and Dad. Clearly nothing worked last night."

"No kidding," Pat retorted. She pushed the covers back. Under them she was wearing a pajama top and cotton shorts. She climbed out of bed and headed over to a pile of clothes neatly folded on the dresser. "Let's hurry so we can find them. I don't want to disappear."

Vicki nodded as she climbed out of bed, revealing a nightgown that hit halfway down her thighs.

Melinda grabbed the clothes she had worn the day before. Piper had washed them while the girls slept, so they were clean and neatly folded. She worked at getting her jeans on under nightgown.

"I don't want to go either," Vicki replied to her sister.

"I'm not going without a fight," Melinda informed her cousins, determination in her voice. Her thoughts were not so sure. _I hope._

* * *

They may have gotten enough sleep, but they certainly aren't refreshed. At the moment they are rather freaked out. To find out what happens next review.


	2. Verification of a Bad Thought

First a thank you to my reviewer:

Cirolane – Yes, her name is Wyatt instead of Halliwell. Technically her name is Melinda Halliwell Wyatt. Her middle name being Halliwell rather than her last name. Different reality, different things happen. In that reality also, Piper was Piper Halliwell-Wyatt, whereas in this one she's just Piper Halliwell. Yes, something like that. Not quite the same, but very similar.

atlan2007 – Let's just say that it isn't by Phoebe's (or Coop's) choice that they cannot be found. That particular story line is going to last beyond this episode.

* * *

Chapter Two – Verification of a Bad Thought

Just around the corner in the other guest room, were another two beds, but only one was occupied. In one of the narrow double beds, Andy Trudeau hugged his arms around his wife, Prue Halliwell-Trudeau, in his sleep.

The door knob turned and the door pushed open partly and Vicki peeked into the room. Seeing her parents, Vicki pushed the door open all the way. "Mom! Dad!"

Pat reached the doorway and stopped, Melinda close behind.

Vicki ran across the room and shook her dad. "Dad! Wake up, Dad!"

Andy's eyes opened and her reluctantly turned his head, since rolling over would roll him right off the bed.

Prue's eyes opened, too, but she only snuggled closer to her husband.

"What is it, Sweetheart?" Andy asked, looking at his younger daughter with sleepy eyes.

Vicki held out her hand for him to see. She waited silently.

Andy frowned and pulled his own hand out from around his wife and into the open. Just as the other three, his hand was transparent. "Prue, may I see your hand?"

Prue turned around in his arms. "What's wrong?"

"Your hand first," he requested.

She held out her hand proving that unlike her husband, daughters, and niece, her hand was solid. "Now, what's going on?"

"Both Vicki's hand and mine are see through," Andy informed her.

Prue shot up and stared at Vicki, then to the doorway where Pat and Melinda stood.

Feeling her mother's eyes on her, Pat held up both hands.

Melinda merely nodded.

Andy pushed up to sit next to his wife.

"I won't lose you," Prue vowed.

"Why don't I go find out if Mom and Dad," Melinda began, stopping to grin at the thought of her parents together. The smile showed in her voice as she continued, "Are awake. Then, I'll see about making breakfast. Not too easy to think on an empty stomach."

"We'll get ready and see you downstairs," Andy agreed. When Melinda had left the room he turned to his daughters. "Girls?"

"Yeah, Dad," Vicki replied, softly.

"I'm heading up to the attic," Pat informed him, answering the unfinished question.

"The attic?" Andy asked, surprised. "Alone. You don't know much about magic."

"Still there's got to be something in that Book," Pat countered, not offended. "I don't want to die, Dad."

Andy stared at his older daughter, wondering if she was ready for this, wondering if any of them were. He smiled. "Be careful."

"No chanting," Pat promised. "Just reading if I find anything, writing." She closed her eyes and tried to orb, just to see if she could. "Though I doubt chanting would do anything, seeing as my powers don't work."

"From what I've seen," Andy commented, "a witch doesn't have to have her powers in order to say a spell."

"They do have to exist though," Pat reminded him, sadly. "And if their powers were stripped that includes spells."

"All right, Smarty Pants," Andy teased, "just be careful."

"I will," Pat assured him.

"And you, Vicki?" Andy asked, turning his attention to his younger daughter.

Vicki considered that. "I think I'll try helping Melinda make breakfast."

"I kind of doubt Piper will let any of you guys cook when she can pamper," Prue commented, "but go ahead and try. We'll be out soon."

Following their mother's words, Pat and Vicki left the room.

* * *

Okay, so I thought the chapters after this were ready, but it would appear I have been spending too much time writing the actual story (does this actually bother anyone?) and not enough on changing it from script to prose. I will work on it as soon as I post this, so presumably I will have the next chapter up in less than an hour as long as I get reviews. It just won't be immediate.


	3. Freezing Out of Control

First a thank you to my reviewers:

atlan2007 – Glad I cleared that up for you. As to the format, you haven't actually seen the format (unless you have been sneaking on to TCS between updates or something, in which case you know exactly what it looks like), but I'm glad you like how I am posting it.

Cirolane – Yes, Melinda can cook. She was in charge of keeping food on the table at the house she shared with her dad in the alternate reality. If you remember she told Leo that the food was fixed. Another place Chris is mocking Wyatt's lack of ability to cook and directly asks her if she can cook, to which she replies that she would have starved if she couldn't have. She has done some cooking with her mom when she visited as well.

Before anyone asks, Piper's power thing is an ongoing background story arc which started in "A Mother Knows". I know what's going on, but am not sure when it will be revealed to you guys, possibly in "Magical Shackles", which is the second to last episode of the season.

* * *

Chapter Three – Freezing Out of Control

Piper Halliwell and Leo Wyatt were asleep, snuggled in each other's arms. The door opened and Melinda looked inside. She just stood there and stared, a smile on her lips. It was an unfamiliar scene, one she wished she had seen more of growing up. She sighed and took a few steps into the room. She stopped a few feet from the bed. She look down at her hands and sighed. "Good morning." There was no response from the bed, so she tried a little bit louder. "Good morning."

Piper's eyes popped open and she pushed herself up. She looked around. Seeing Melinda she looked startled and waved her hands.

Melinda stopped moving.

_That shouldn't have worked_, Piper thought as she realized who the intruder was.She waved an absent minded hand at Leo. She shook him while staring across the room at Melinda's transparent hands.

Leo's eyes slid open and he looked at his wife. "What's wrong, Piper?"

"She froze," Piper informed him, fear growing within her.

"What?" Leo asked confused as he turned his head to see what Piper was looking at. Seeing Melinda frozen still he frowned. "Probable because of Kevin's claim that they don't exist here."

"Piper?" Prue's voice called questioningly from outside the room.

Piper looked at Leo. "In here."

Prue appeared at the door. She stopped at the sight of Melinda. "And here I was wondering why you froze the household," she commented sardonically.

"The household?" Piper asked, a bit freaked out. "That was only supposed to freeze the room." She climbed off the bed and walked over to the window.

Prue shrugged. "Well, you froze Andy and apparently Mel, so I'm guessing the whole house, though I suppose it could just be the floor."

Outside, Piper could see movement, she she turned back to Prue and Leo. "At least I appear to have confined it to the house."

"Don't you have control over your powers?" Prue asked worried.

Piper shrugged. "Ever since magic came back . . ."

Before Piper could finish the statement, Prue interrupted. "Came back?"

Piper nodded. "I'll explain later."

Prue glanced over at her niece, still froze still. "Would you at least unfreeze them?"

"Right," Piper agreed. She waved her hands.

Melinda looked around startled. "What's going . . ? What ha . . ? Why?" She focused her eyes on her mother. "Did you freeze me?"

Piper nodded.

Melinda gulped. "Does that mean I'm not even a witch anymore?"

"I don't know," Piper admitted.

Melinda sighed. "I was just coming to wake you up and tell you I was going to fix breakfast."

"Don't worry about breakfast," Piper told her. "I'll get that."

"I want to make breakfast," Melinda persisted. _If this doesn't work, I won't remember, but I want you to have that memory. I want that memory_. She felt like crying. She didn't want to go, to stop being. "Can I at least make it with you?"

Piper looked at her, a tender expression on her face. She nodded.

"Thank you," Melinda replied before she turned and promptly ran into Prue. "Sorry, Aunt Prue."

"That's okay," Prue assured her. Prue waited as Melinda left the room. Once she was gone, Prue looked at her sister. "You saw her hands?"

Piper nodded.

Prue held out her hands. They were still solid. She dropped them to her sides. "It's all four of them."

When neither sister spoke, Leo did. "Why don't I call the boys, see if they are up?"

Prue looked at Leo surprised. "I forgot you were here."

"I was that quiet?" he asked.

"No," Prue denied. "It's more I'm not used to you being here, with Piper that is."

"Why's that?" Leo asked confused. "If we had a daughter . . ." He trailed off as he remembered a long ago conversation with Piper, so long ago they hadn't even been married yet.

Not knowing his thought, Prue none the less confirmed his suspicions. "You were divorced."

"Oh." Leo looked at Piper with a smile.

Piper looked back at Prue.

"Well, thankfully we managed to make it through all out rough spots here," Leo informed her.

"Barely," Piper added, remembering back. "When Chris made you an elder. . ."

"Chris?" Once more Prue interrupted. "Your son? How could he make Leo an elder?"

"He was time traveling," Piper informed her, reluctant to go into that right then. "It's a very long story."

"I want to hear it, but I supposed it will have to wait." Prue looked at Piper and Leo for a moment. "I'll leave you so you can get dressed." She walked out of the room.

Hope you enjoyed that. I am going to continue working on the next section, so that I can get it up soon if you review.

* * *

In the next section I loved my reviewer on TCS' response to it. Hope you enjoy it as much.


	4. The Brother's Two

First a thank you to my reviewers:

atlan2007 – Yep. I love that too. It's fun freaking Piper out when her powers don't quite do what she plans.

Cirolane – Throw away comments are fun. There are some things you just can't explain in a few minutes, like evil dictator Wyatt or an all out demonic attack on a four-year-old nephew. These things need more time. No, Melinda didn't have an easy life. While her brother wasn't the source of all evil, she did lose a lot of people she cared about much like Chris did. To her count prior to the deaths of Piper and Paige she lost Phoebe (when she was 7), Victor (11), Henry Jr. (12), her boyfriend and her best friend at the same time (22), and Henry (23). And that's just the people close to her. She had to deal with more than one instance where people all around her were dying by demonic attack or Pratt attack. The added burden of having a sibling who was the source of all evil, would have been just cruel (just as it was just cruel to Chris).

* * *

Chapter Four – The Brothers Two

Elsewhere in San Francisco, Wyatt was asleep in his bed. The room was somewhat messy, clothes thrown on a chair, the end of the bed, and the floor. The covers were twisted up, barely covering any of Wyatt Halliwell's body. He was drenched in sweat, his sleep the night before having been anything but peaceful.

At the sound of the phone ringing in another room, Wyatt's eyes shot open. He sat up and looked toward the door. He held out his hand and the apartment phone appeared in blue and white orbs. He pushed the on button and put the phone to his ear, grateful to get away from impossible nightmares of his missing girlfriend and her missing sister. His voice was stressed as he spoke into the phone. "Morning. This is Wyatt."

Concern laced Leo's voice as he asked, "Are you alright?"

"Just a nightmare," Wyatt assured him, trying to get back in control of his voice. _Was it just a nightmare? Is she still out there somewhere?_ He refused to voice his thoughts. "A really detailed nightmare," he added, as if that would calm his dad, "but just a nightmare. Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure?" Leo persisted.

A half smile formed on Wyatt's lips. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Temporarily satisfied, Leo made a mental note to ask his son about it later. "I'll drop if for not. I'm calling to see when you two plan to be over. Your mom just went downstairs to work on breakfast with Melinda. Do you want to join us for breakfast?"

"Yeah," Wyatt's smile widened. "I'll get Chris. See you soon, Dad."

"Bye, Son," Leo told him before he hung up.

Wyatt pushed the off button on the phone and put it down. He climbed out of his bed clad only in boxers, sweat creating a sheen on his skin. He walked over to the dresser and pulled out a pair of pants and a shirt. As he dressed he walked over to his bookshelf and pulled off some papers. Before going to bed, he had worked on his idea for a while, hoping to find something useful, or even to come up with some other idea they could try. So far he was still sure his idea would work, but after looking at it with a detached point of view, he understood why everyone else didn't seem to like it. He folded the papers and stuffed them into his pocket.

He walked to the door of his room and pulled it open. He walked out into the hallway and turning left, he walked the few steps past the bathroom and stopped in front of his brother's door.

* * *

Chris was asleep on his bed. Unlike his brother, his covers were almost neat and covered him past his shoulders. There was a peaceful expression on his face.

The sound of a knock on his door was followed by his brother's voice, "Chris?"

Chris shifted in his sleep.

Wyatt knocked on the door, again. "Chris, it's Wyatt."

Chris didn't open his eyes as he responded. "Go away."

"Can't," Wyatt informed him. "Dad called."

Chris sighed, his eyes still closed. "I heard the phone."

"He wants us to come to breakfast," Wyatt informed him.

"What on earth for?" Chris asked, only half awake.

"I'm thinking Aunt Prue and the others," Wyatt retorted back.

That caught Chris attention. His eyes flew opened as he responded. "Oh. Sorry, I'm only half awake. Yeah, give me a few minutes."

"Not a problem," Wyatt conceded, easily. "I'll meet you there."

Chris pushed the covers off. He had no shirt. He climbed out of bed, revealing pajama bottoms. "See you there then."

* * *

Clearly Chris wasn't quite awake yet. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and the two shirtless brothers.


	5. Odd Thoughts, Odd Feelings

First a thank you to my reviewers:

perrycharmed – You know I kind of forgot about that, but you are right, so I'm going to put some things in there on that topic. Thanks for the reminded.

Cirolane – Yes, I suppose a neat freak just might. Glad you enjoyed the chapter.

* * *

Chapter Five – Odd Thoughts, Odd Feelings

Back at the manor, Vicki was finished setting the table. Her hands were almost completely transparent, but her grip on the silverware in her hands was firm. She looked up at blue-white orbs on the other side of the room turn into Wyatt. She hastily put the last setting of silverware on the table and stuffed her hands behind her back.

Wyatt looked around and saw her standing there fidgeting. "Hi. Vicki, right?" It wasn't so much he forgot; more that he wasn't sure how to start a conversation with this stranger who also happened to be family.

Vicki just nodded.

Seeing that Vicki's hands were hidden behind her back Wyatt asked, "What's behind your back?" When she hesitated, he hastened to add, "It's okay. You don't have to show me."

Vicki sighed. "You'll find out eventually. Remember when He said we were fading yesterday?" Wyatt nodded, so Vicki brought out her hands.

Wyatt frowned as he looked at them. "That's not good. All of you like that?"

Vicki nodded. "Except Mom."

Piper and Melinda walked into the room carrying food.

Wyatt's eyes focused on Melinda's hands. _Odd, how it seems the food is floating with her hands doing that._ "Good morning, Mom. Hello, again, Melinda. Dad said you were going to feed us.

Melinda grinned. "Can't have you starve I suppose, though Chris did say he could cook."

"He can," Wyatt agreed, cheerily, "but I'm always good for Mom's cooking."

Piper smiled as she put down the food in her hands. Turning to Vicki, she said, "Would you go find everyone?"

Vicki nodded and ran out of the room.

* * *

The sitting room was empty, but not for long. Blue-white orbs turned into Chris at the same time Vicki ran into the room. She stopped and watched. "Good morning, Chris."

Chris turned around. He smiled at first and then frowned as he noticed her hands. "What happened to your hands?"

"We are fading," Vicki reminded him. "I guess we won't have any problem finding out if we fixed things or not." She gave him a half smile and continued, "Aunt Piper asked me to fetch everyone for breakfast." That said Vicki ran up the stairs.

Chris stood there for a moment, her hands bringing back eerie memories of a day he would rather forget. He started for the dining room. The sound of the doorbell ringing caused him to stop, turn around, and head toward the front door instead.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed that rather short chapter.


	6. Powers Available When?

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Cirolane – I can't promise much there as a lot is already written, but I did add the conversation between Wyatt and Melinda in this chapter just for you. I'm not sure what to say about Vicki. It may seem like she just knows things. She doesn't. She dreamt them. I like Vicki, though so far I have more fun with Pat. They are both out of their element here, though.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Well, I clearly can't go back and make Piper give birth to twins, but in a way with their identical birthdays, identical powers, identical prophecies, and clearly not identical looks (Melinda has brown hair like most of the family) they are like twins. Melinda isn't Wyatt as a girl. She more like what would happen if he had a twin sister. Glad you are enjoying the story so far.

piperspeanut – Every once in a while, Chris finds his elder abilities useful. I have already answered the question of the connection between this story and "Imaginary Fiends", but I don't mind repeating it, because it means people are reading both stories and that they are paying attention to the details. Yes, this story and that one will meet up eventually. This story is episodes seven and eight. The story where Ladybug comes to Chris concerned about her parents (since they still can't find them) is episode fourteen (When Two Wrongs Make a Right), I think. "Imaginary Fiends" is between episodes seventeen (A Brother's Bond) and nineteen (Witch Eater). And yes, I skipped eighteen (Just Imagine) there on purpose, because it happens during the middle of "Imaginary Fiends". Glad you liked the shirtless brothers. Too bad I didn't have pictures.

For anyone who is interested, I updated my fanfiction page to include the approximate years of birth of the various characters. I need to get specific birthdates for everyone. Since most of them are in this story, here is a quick age list for the cousins. Prue's girls: Pat (15) and Vicki (13). Piper's kids: Wyatt (25), Chris (23), and Melinda (25). Phoebe's girls: Ladybug (20), Cilly (19), and Hope (11). Boy was I off on Phoebe's girls. Paige's kids: Alanna (18), Janice (18), and Hank (17). On an added note only one of these eleven kids was in both time lines, Hank. Hope that helps keep things straight.

* * *

Chapter Six – Powers Available When?

Chris entered the entry hall and walked to the door. He opened it enough to see outside. On the front step he saw his aunt, Paige Matthews-Mitchell with her husband, Henry Wallace Mitchell, Sr., and their twin daughters, Alanna Mitchell and Janice Patricia Mitchell. Chris pulled the door open all the way. "Good morning, Aunt Paige, Uncle Henry, Alanna, Janice. Where's Hank?"

Paige's face fell at Chris words and Chris knew he had said the wrong thing. Unsure what to say he waited for his aunt's answer. It came with a sigh. "Still with the elders and we still don't know why."

Chris gulped. It didn't matter the time line. He didn't much care for the elders. "Want me to go up there and find him?" He hated the idea, but he had to ask for her sake.

To his relief, Paige shook her head. "No. I wouldn't want to risk them keeping you up there, too."

With those words, she entered the house, a sad smile directed at her nephew. As her husband and daughters followed her in, Chris wondered what was up with his cousin. _Why would the elders want to keep Hank? He's not much for mischief, so they couldn't be trying to keep him out of it. And he's smart, so he could maybe be of some use here._ 

Chris looked up at the sky before he flicked his wrist and sent the door back into its frame.

* * *

Back in the kitchen, Melinda and Wyatt were seated next to each other at the table. Melinda was laughing at the comical expression on Wyatt's face. "You'd think I told you that the moon was indeed made of green cheese or something."

"But you had your powers and you never used them?" Wyatt repeated dumbfounded.

"I didn't say never," Melinda informed him. "Almost never. Mom and Dad both told me not to. It was just too dangerous at times. Pratt watched out every move and no one wanted us kids to risk it. I've had to use them in self defense and I wasn't about to let an innocent die if I could stop it, but for the most part I learned nonmagical means of defending both myself and innocents."

"I just don't get it," Wyatt told her, shaking his head. "You had powers and you . . . you _had_ powers."

"Huh?" Melinda looked at him confused. "I'm well aware of that fact. What's on your mind?"

Wyatt frowned. "Well, we didn't have powers for years, not witch powers anyway. Chris has memories from another time line and one of the few things I have actually gotten out of him is that in that time line, magic worked and here you are telling me that in yours it worked as well." He scowled up at the ceiling. "What's so special about this time line that we _lose_ our powers?"

Melinda winced at the sound of Wyatt's raised voice. "Okay, that's weird, but not yelling would be preferable."

Wyatt sighed. "Sorry. Sometimes I feel like my family thinks I'm about two and can't take whatever happened in this other time line."

"What do you think happened?"

Wyatt shrugged. "I'm not sure. In one very odd conversation with Chris I gathered that his alternate self went to the past to save me, but I'm not sure from what. And yet, I don't think the problem was that I died, because I have this feeling that if that was it, they would have just told me." The sound of footsteps causes him to look up. "Look, I don't think I should talk about this in front of Chris."

Melinda shook her head, smiling. "Wow. If we can do this, I'm going to ask you again."

Wyatt shrugged. "Won't matter. _I_ don't know anything." He dropped silent as Chris entered the room followed by Paige.

Chris stopped and looked at Melinda. _I forgot. If they look anything like Vicki's, I can't let her see Melinda's hands without warning her._

Paige barely avoided bumping into Chris. _What's going on?_ She tried to look past him, but was distracted as the rest of her family entered the room, bumping into her and almost pushing her over.

"There's something you should know," Chris began hesitantly."

Melinda looked at him startled. _He knows_, she thought as realization spread across her face. "It's okay; I'll tell them. I'm Melinda," she told them for Henry and Janice's sake. She'd spent hours the day before with Alanna and had briefly met Paige before they had left the night before. "Did Aunt Paige or Alanna explain what was going on to you?"

Henry nodded.

"Mom and Alanna explained that you are from another reality," Janice added, "and we are trying to keep you, but time is limited."

"Very limited," Melinda agreed. "We have less then twelve hours left and we are running out of ideas." Melinda took in a deep breath. _Here goes nothing._ "Sometime during the night we started to show physical signs of this time limit.

"What happened?" Alanna asked, instantly on the alert.

"Our hands . . ." Melinda told them bringing out her hands for inspection, ". . . are fading and I imagine the rest of us will follow."

"That's awful," Alanna pronounced.

"No more awful than the end result if we don't fix this," Melinda reminded her. "Transparent hands I can live with. A lack of existence," she shrugged, "I can't."

* * *

This seemed a good place to end the chapter. After this one is posted I am going to get off for the night, so no more updates tonight, but I'll get back to work on it after work tomorrow and I have the day after off, so I'll be able to get somewhere. The next scene I have to write involves my Warlock. He's going to make some trouble . . . imagine that. I am debating whether or not to put his daughter in the scene, because she's not really supposed to show up much until episode twelve. I have a really good reason for putting my Warlock in this episode and it's not to keep him in every episode (after all, he wasn't in part one). You'll understand when we get there. I hope to see a bunch of reviews when I check tomorrow, but either way, I hope you enjoy this next chapter.


	7. Awkward Meetings

First a thank you to my reviewers: atlan2007

piperspeanut – I had so much fun with that conversation. I'm glad Cirolane brought it up. It is fun writing those three in conversations.

perrycharmed – Does Paige know . . . um . . . I don't know. Is that bad? I'll have to think about that. She probably does, because that information did kind of circulate around the family . . . and Kali. Both Victor and Kali indicated that they had heard something about it. Now, how much she knows is a little less clear. That first day that magic was back, though, there would have been a lot of conversations between Piper and Phoebe and Paige, so Paige (and Phoebe) no doubt knows that Chris has some memory of that time line, but she may not have heard that he has all of it. I will see if I can find an opportunity to fit something in referencing season six, because you are right that it would be funny.

gabrieldarke – Glad to hear from you, again. Now to see how many of your questions I can answer. If they save them what happens next . . . yeah, can't answer that. Can't answer what has happened to Phoebe and Coop, either, but you knew that. The Warlock's name is Steve Kessler. Not the question you wanted answered, but I can answer that. I'm sure that didn't really help, but I'm really glad to hear from you, again.

Cirolane – Yes, I do believe you are right, but there are other things going through his head. Grant you they are far, far in the back of his mind, but they will probably pop up in a conversation with Chris sometime in a later episode. Hank? Well, I think I will plead the fifth on that one. There is a reason Hank is Up There and there is a reason he is still Up There. He will be quite happy to tell you (and everyone else who happens to be in the room / scene) when he shows back up in there series, at least the parts he knows, which is most of it. I'm not going to say when you will see him, again.

* * *

Chapter Seven - Awkward Meetings

Piper entered the dining room from the kitchen. She had caught the tail end of Melinda's statement. "First, we eat. Maybe we can come up with more ideas once we have eaten. Come in."

Chris, Paige, Henry, Alanna, and Janice all entered the room and headed toward the table. As they began to sit down, Vicki appeared in the doorway behind them. "Everyone's coming." She walked over to the table. As she passed Janice, who had pulled out a chair to sit in, she stopped and smiled. "Hi, Janice. It's nice to actually meet you."

Janice looked at her confused. She looked over at Alanna and then back at Vicki. "Right. Alanna said you knew her on sight."

Vicki looked around. "But where is your brother?"

"I don't know," Janice admitted softly. She was worried about him. "He didn't come home last night."

Vicki looked disappointed. Unnoticed by her, her parents and her sister, once more carrying a notepad, entered the room from the doorway behind her. "I had hoped to meet him, but perhaps," Vicki sighed before continuing. "I guess we'll just have to make this work so I can."

Behind her, Andy looked amused as he said, "An interesting reason to survive."

Vicki turned toward the doorway as Leo entered the room. Grinning at her dad, she said, "Hi, Dad."

"Hi, Sweetie," Andy replied. "Behaving?"

"Always," Vicki assured him. As if there ever was any other choice.

Pat eyed her sister silently. She wasn't sure if her sister was just adjusting to this place better than her, or if she was just giddy with freedom, but she was going to keep an eye on her sister. _If we survive._ The thought depressed her, but she hoped that if they made it through all this, her sister would calm down. Vicki had already told her that the people here were like in her dreams. Alanna had told her that it had been rather disconcerting when Vicki had known her without ever meeting her. Based on the way Vicki had described first meeting Alanna, she had wondered if there wasn't some tiny spark of whatever Vicki's powers was, but now looking across the room at the twin sisters, she discarded the thought. She too saw the feint signs of warmth and cold on their otherwise identical faces. Pat walked over to find a seat at the table just as everyone else seemed to be doing with the exception of her mother.

Prue walked over to Henry. It had been nearly two years since she had laid eyes on Paige's husband, but two years and an alternate time line apparently changed nothing. "I know you don't know me, but it's good to see you, Henry."

Henry looked at her, a bit confused. He recognized her from pictures, but as she said, they had never met. "I guess that means you knew me."

Prue couldn't keep the sadness out of her voice. "Yes."

"Not a good thing?" he hazarded to guess.

"Not in the end," Prue admitted. "Paige . . . in our reality . . . lost you a couple of years ago."

"Oh." He couldn't think of any other response to that. "So I'm dead," just didn't seem appropriate.

"Sorry," Prue told him. "It's just kind of overwhelming, all the differences. I'm glad you're here, that Paige still has you."

"Thanks," Henry said, but it just felt a bit awkward to thank a stranger for being glad you weren't dead, no matter how that stranger was related to one's wife.

Prue looked across the table to where Piper stood. "You still haven't called Dad."

Piper nodded and headed toward the door. "I'll go do that right now, while everyone starts eating." Piper escaped the room before anyone could object. Not that talking to her dad was going to be any less tense than that room seemed. How did one go about telling their dad that his dead daughter was there with her family?

* * *

Cirolane, you got me going into a trying to make you like Vicki thing. Except I don't think there is much I can do, because I can't just change her personality. She's an excitable, rush-in-head-long, act-first-think-later kid who has just been given the keys to the world (by her way of thinking) despite the fact that she doesn't know if she will survive to see tomorrow, and to make that more fun, she has had these glimpses of these people in her sleep, so she knows more about them then would be normal for someone in her position.

Anyway, I hope you like that chapter. Coming up next is Piper's conversation with Victor followed by a chapter that I love the title of (despite it being slightly creepy.) I wrote part of the conversation with Victor months ago, so it needed some modification to fit what was actually going on in the story, though not much. I will be working on getting that chapter ready to post for when you review.


	8. News a Father Just Doesn’t Get

First a thank you to my reviewers:

du1387 – Sorry that I didn't respond to your reviews sooner, so here goes. I got the inspiration for Ladybug's nickname from the fact that on Charmed Phoebe called her daughter that she kept dreaming about, Ladybug. It will be a while yet before you hear what Wyatt's idea is. I am confused. Why would Wyatt become half elder? Chris is only half elder because Leo was an elder when he was conceived. Nope the foreshadowing was something else in that chapter. Cirolane was able to guess it. Yes, that does sound like Piper. Glad you liked the boys shirtless. Mmm. No, not Phoebe, but by now you already know that. And now you get to see Victor's reaction.

gabrieldarke – Yeah, you should have seen me. I was excited, because I could at least answer one question. Have you wondered what Alanna and Janice's powers are? I don't think it's been mentioned (unless you checked their bios on my site). I just had fun writing a scene in a story that involved them using their powers. You will find out about Phoebe's girls reactions to various things shortly.

perrycharmed – Hope this chapter lives up to expectation, and I hope I did good writing Victor. It's funny, because in another story I am also in the middle of your dead daughter isn't dead, except that dead daughter had only been dead a day or so. That news was delivered in person. Think I should post that story here? I am definitely at the mercy of my betas for that one, since it is the sequel to their story (which is posted here), but it has eight chapters so far.

Cirolane - I almost missed you review as I was uploading this when you sent it. Yes, Vicki is a bit too grown up. Yes, she probably would be someone who was a bit reckless under normal circumstances and definately someone who liked to have fun. Too true about Henry. He just got told that he died in the other reality, but he also just got told that in the other reality he and his wife were together, just the same as in this one. Hope you do like Victor's response.

* * *

Chapter Eight – News a Father Just Doesn't Get

Piper left the kitchen and walked right on through the sitting room. Much as she didn't want to leave Prue for a second, it was getting tense in there and Prue was right. It wasn't every day that one got a sister back from the dead, especially a sister who had been dead for almost thirty years, but Dad would want to know. Their relationship had never been the best, especially since Dad left, but Dad had long regretted never being able to fix things with Prue. It was clear from what Prue had said that she, too, regretted never fixing their relationship.

Piper walked into the hall, stopping in front of a small table containing only an old, corded, spin dial phone and an answering machine. She picked up the phone, curling her fingers around the cord as she pondered what to say. What did one say when one was telling someone over the phone that their dead daughter was in fact no longer dead? Her fingers started shaking as she spun the dial. The phone pressed to her ear, she waited.

On the other end, Victor Bennett heard the phone ringing, just as he was getting out of the shower. He didn't bother to dry his hair as he wrapped a towel around himself and grabbed the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi, Dad," Piper's voice came out just above a whisper.

"Can this wait, Piper?" Victor asked, looking down at the towel.

Piper shook her head. "I rather think it shouldn't. It's important, Dad."

"Who's hurt?" he asked, at once apprehensive.

A sad sigh escaped Piper's lips in acknowledgement that important for them usually was bad news. "It's good news, Dad, really good news."

Victor seemed to hear the importance in her voice. "All right. What is this about?"

"Prue."

There was silence as Victor stares at the phone for several seconds, trying absorb this. _Prue? How can there be good news about Prue? Prue is dead. What kind of good __news? What kind of good news can their possibly be for someone for who is dead? My daughters are witches. Could they have done something? Could magic actually do something good for a change?_ When the questions piling up in his mind started to boggle his brain, Victor decided he'd better ask, but first he wanted to verify that he had heard her right. "Good news? About Prue?"

"Yes, Dad," Piper told him, a smile on her lips.

"What kind of good news?" Victor demanded. "Were you finally able to summon her?"

"No," Piper informed him, regret in her voice for all the failed attempts over the years. "I think the elders or whomever it is who is keeping us from summoning her would be quite content to keep us from doing so forever."

"Then, what?" Victor couldn't think of any other way there could be good news about his oldest daughter.

"She's here," Piper told him, "from an alternate reality."

Victor's spirits fell. "Then, she's not our Prue."

"She has all but the last two years of Prue's memory," Piper argued. "That's when the realities separated. She's our Prue, Dad. She's just lived longer."

Piper's last words reverberated through Victor's head. "She's alive?"

"And wants to see you," Piper added.

Surprise sounded in Victor's voice. "She does?"

"Yes," Piper smiled. Her expression became serious as she added, "In her reality, you're the one who's dead."

"Oh." It wasn't the kind statement a person usually had to respond to. What did one say to that anyway?

"There's more," Piper informed him, "but the rest is kind of mixed news."

"Now, you give me bad news." Somehow it didn't surprise him that there was bad news."

"You've got to admit the timing works," Piper teased.

Victor shook his head, not to deny her words, for bad news after good, usually was more palatable, but because he didn't need the stress of the waiting. "Just tell me."

Piper conceded easily. This was one conversation that didn't need to be drawn out. She liked talking to her dad, but for so many reasons, now the conversation needed to be over soon. "Prue didn't come alone. There are four other who came with her and if don't find a solution they will cease to exist. They cannot go back. They have nowhere to go back to."

_Four others,_ Victor repeated in his mind. "Who are the other four and does this mean Prue can stay alive?"

"She can stay alive, is she chooses," Piper informed him, hoping that even if they failed, Prue would make that decision to stay alive. "The other four are her husband, her two daughters, and my daughter."

"Your . . ." Victor began.

"Just come, Dad," Piper interrupted. "Your daughter and your granddaughters want to see you."

"I'm coming," Victor agreed with a smile.

"I'll see you soon, then," Piper informed him. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you, too, Piper," Victor told her. "Tell Prue I'm heading over."

"Bye," Piper said, a smile on her lips.

"Bye," Victor replied before he hung up. He headed back to his room to get dressed. He didn't understand how, but he was going to get to see his oldest daughter, again.

* * *

Mission accomplished, Piper headed back to the dining room. While she was gone, they had brought in extra chairs to seat everyone, so everyone was sitting at the table. Piper entered the room and unceremoniously announced. "Dad's coming over."

Prue smiled, glad for this chance. "Thank you."

* * *

More to come. That conversation is over, but there is still more for Victor to find out when he arrives. To find out what happens next, review. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I've been doing a lot of writing this morning. I've been having fun writing a fight scene, because it is just so not much of a fight scene, more of an annoyance. Hope to hear from everyone soon. I'm trying to keep ahead of you, so that I can post relatively fast after I get reviews. So far so good. I'm a few chapters ahead of you with only a few chapters left to go before I finish the episode, I think.


	9. Daughters of the Dead

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Cirolane – Yeah, that is an old phone. For some reason I just wanted her to have that phone. I have never described the phone in the front hall before, just the answering machine. Yeah, in that family hurt is more a reason for a phone call than all right.

gabrieldarke – You're right of course and that will be soon enough, three more chapters, I think. Glad you liked Victor's reaction.

atlan2007 – He still doesn't get magic, but he does get that it can do some pretty surprising things.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Well, you're not quite here, but when you get to this chapter, I hope you enjoy.

du1387 – Soon, soon, but not quite yet. Actually, I have some work to do on that section, because I am not happy with it.

piperspeanut – I'm sorry you're having computer problems. That bites. Hope you can fix it soon. No comment as to whether they will succeed, but Prue has had fourteen years to regret never fixing her relationship with her dad. In her reality, Victor died about a year before Vicki was born. I personally find Vicki's name funny, because she is named after two people that really didn't like each other . . . Victor and Grams.

perrycharmed – Go to the fanfiction page of JustEs and read her story "Our Screwed Up Destiny" if you haven't. If you don't, my story will not make much sense as it is a direct sequel. I will post the first chapter after I post this one, but trust me you want to read "Our Screwed Up Destiny" first. It is written by Es and PrimroseEmpath. Shraddha (a girl I know on another site) and I acted as betas on another site since we were always giving them detailed reviews and were several chapters ahead of everyone else. To make my sequel sound more like a sequel both Es and Primrose are acting as betas for me in my sequel to their story. My sequel is called "Turning the Pages of Destiny". I love your comment about without my stories you would probably get your homework done on time. Believe me, I know the feeling. My mom didn't quite see it the way I did, but when I was in school, my stories often got in the way of getting my homework done at a decent time. I'm not sure how much of Chris I can promise, not that it won't be a lot, but this particular episode has so much family in it. Sounds like whenever I get enough of it done that I am ready to start posting it, you will love my Chris Chronicles. He is not only the star of the series he is in every single scene and you get to hear what he is thinking. It follows him through season six starting prior to his leaving the future, so you get to see my idea of the unchanged future. I'm trying to work on that when I have spare time. I am working myself thin here with Charmed, but it is so much fun.

The title of the chapter comes from the fact that the daughters of the sister dead in one reality meet the daughters of the sister dead in the other reality. For some reason I really like the title. I have never seen the movie "Dawn of the Dead", but I figure the title came to my mind from that.

* * *

Chapter Nine – Daughters of the Dead

A while later, the food on the table was almost finished, but with thirteen people eating it, that surprised no one. There had been a few awkward silences when someone, usually Melinda, had begun a story about someone from the other reality and realized that that person was no more.

Melinda frowned as she looked at her food on her plate.

"Is something the matter?" Wyatt asked.

Melinda shrugged. "I was just thinking. We keep talking about people whom we lost by leaving out reality. What about the people we gained back?"

"You mean like Mom's sisters?" Pat piped up.

Melinda nodded. "Yes, like then." She smiled across the table at her mom. "But maybe others, too. Remember my friends, Lukas and Ana?"

Pat nodded. "They got burned for being witches."

"Now, maybe they don't even exist here," Melinda admitted, "but maybe they're still alive."

"Your friends were burned for being witches?" Piper asked. She hadn't really considered that anyone else might have been killed for being a witch the way Phoebe had.

Melinda sighed. "Pratt was obsessed. He wanted our family gone, but unless he could prove we were witches, he couldn't do it, so he kept the witch trials going and a lot of people died. I guess it was the ultimate revenge against him that though you and Aunt Paige died in our reality, he wasn't around to see it."

"Did something happen to him?" Paige asked, curious.

Melinda nodded. "About a year ago, he was murdered. They almost sent an innocent woman to her death for his death, too. Is he still around here?"

Paige shrugged. "I'm not even sure who he is."

Piper also shrugged. "He never made the media light, so I really don't know. It never interested me to find out either. If I remember, I will try and look into that at a later date.

Melinda smiled. "I guess it doesn't really matter, so long as he never started the witch hunts.

So intent was everyone on the conversation Melinda had started that no one noticed as against the wall opposite the kitchen entrance, two figures a couple of feet apart began to appear in hearts. One figure turned into Cilly Halliwell. As she fully materialized, Cilly's eyes widened and she took a staggering step back toward the wall. She covered her ears and closed her eyes.

The other figure turned into two people as Phoebe's oldest daughter, Ladybug Halliwell, carried the responsibility of transporting both herself and her so far powerless younger sister, Hope Halliwell. As Hope let go of Ladybug, Ladybug took a step toward the table.

Wincing, Cilly forced her eyes opened and her hands off her ears. She didn't want anyone to see her doing that when they noticed her and it didn't seem to help the mass of emotions battering against the mind of the young empathy.

"Aunt Piper," Ladybug called out alerting everyone to their presence.

Piper looked up. "Ladybug!"

Pat and Vicki turned their heads to look at Ladybug and her younger sisters. In unison they exclaimed, "Ladybug?!"

"Is that your name?" Vicki added.

"Prudence actually," Ladybug admitted with a smile, "but Mom calls me Ladybug, so it stuck."

"Are you our cousins?" Hope asked, looking at Pat and Vicki curiously.

When Pat and Vicki turned to look at Piper, she smiled. "Prue, Andy, Melinda, Pat, Vicki, allow me to introduce you to Phoebe's daughters. Hope is the short one. She's 

only eleven, so we figure she'll keep growing. Ladybug has already introduced herself. She's Phoebe's oldest. The girl against the wall is Phoebe's middle daughter, Cilly."

If anyone wondered what Cilly was doing against the wall, she immediately answered them. "And against this wall I will stay until we leave. As much as I would like to meet all of you, I am afraid my powers are still rather new to me and almost overwhelming at the moment."

"You can handle a library full of people," Chris retorted sardonically, "but not a room full of family."

Cilly wasn't at all offended by his words. "Allow me to rephrase that. I can handle a library full of blasé people plus a slightly agitated Wyatt, but not a room full of emotionally distraught, hesitantly excited family."

"Uh."

"Yeah," Cilly nodded her head. "Sounds different when I describe it." She reached into nher pocket and pulled out a digital camera. "Don't mind me." _I'm making memories._ She raised the camera to her eye and took a picture. She looked at the image on the screen and satisfied that everyone who was supposed to was in the picture, she went back to taking pictures.

Vicki grinned for the camera. Pat giggled.

"We wanted to meet you," Ladybug informed them, "but we can't stay."

"Mom and Dad are missing," Hope informed them.

Piper frowned. "You can't find them?"

Hope shook her head. "Nowhere. Not that I'm any use to Ladybug and Cilly. Aunt Piper, you don't know what it's like to watch them scrying and using their powers and knowing I can't do anything, because I don't even have cupid powers yet."

"She may not," Vicki admitted, "but we do." She turned to her older sister. "Don't we, Pat."

"It is frustrating," Pat agreed, "but at least I can help keep track of ideas." She held up her notepad. To be honest, she was more concerned with staying alive then getting back her powers. "I'm Pat, but the way and this is my younger sister, Vicki."

Hope clutched the edges of an imaginary skirt and curtsied. "?Glad to meet you. Sorry for complaining. It's just, as you say, frustrationg."

"A frustration we are quite used to, I'm afraid," Melinda informed her, speaking for the first time since the three sisters had shown up. "Even when we had powers, we weren't really allowed to use them."

"Oh," Hope said her eyes wide. "At least if I ever get any, I will be allowed to use them." Her curiosity overcoming her she asked. "Who are you?"

"I'm Melinda," Melinda informed her young cousin.

"My daughter," Piper added for clarification.

"Oh," Hope considered this. With eager eyes she asked, "Do I get a new sister?"

Thinking back to watching Phoebe burn all those years ago, even though they got her back when they returned to their time, Piper felt sadness fill her. Her voice was slightly strained as she replied, "Sorry, no."

Despite not being able to read her aunt's emotions, or even differentiate them if she could, Cilly could see the strain on Piper's face. "Hope, I think you should go give Aunt Prue a hug like you want to and we'll get going. We need to find Mom and Dad."

Hope turned eager eyes to Prue. "Do you mind?"

In response, Prue held out her arms. "Not at all."

Hope scurried over to Prue and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm glad to meet you, Aunt Prue."

Cilly snapped a picture of the two of them causing Ladybug to smile. _Another picture for my collection._ Despite Cilly being the one to bring a camera, Ladybug was the photographer of the three sisters. She also was the one whose walls were plastered with photographs.

Hope moved away and looked at Andy. "Are you my uncle?"

"Andy Trudeau," he offered.

Hope turned to look at her sisters. She knew that name and she knew that face. "I think that's a yes. I told you they looked like a perfect couple in that picture."

Ladybug laughed. "Yes, every time you see that picture."

Seeing confused faces on many in the room, Cilly offered an explanation. "Which is every time she's in Ladybug's room. Ladybug figures as your namesake, Aunt Prue, it's her right to decorate her room in pictures of you and by you."

Prue smiled at her words.

At the sound of the doorbell Piper glanced toward the front of the house. "That's probably Dad. Do you want to stay and say hi?"

Ladybug shook her head. "We really ought to go. They left three days ago, four now, which means we are four days behind."

"Good luck," Cilly added. "Tell Grandpa hi from us."

Hope walked back to her sisters.

Ladybug wrapped her arms around her little sister. "Good bye." With those words the two sisters disappeared in hearts.

Cilly smiled and saluted them as the doorbell rang again. "We'll call you if we find anything significant."

"We'll do the same," Piper promised. As Cilly followed her sisters back home with hearts all around, Piper headed toward the sitting room. "I better go get the door."

* * *

Hope you liked that chapter and hope you liked getting to know Phoebe's girls a little better. And now I finally feel safe telling you that, no, Phoebe will not be in this episode. You will not find out what happened to her in this episode, but you will find out what happened to her and Coop eventually.

Cirolane, I did try to give you more Wyatt and Melinda conversation, but I'm afraid they didn't cooperate


	10. Trouble Brewing

First a thank you to my reviewers:

du1387 – Sorry. My original intent when deciding episodes a couple of years ago (has it really been that long? Wow!) was to keep it such that it could be an actual episode and as such keep Shannen and Alyssa out of the same episode (though I don't really know if they would care.) It will be an ongoing background story arc for a while. I finally pinned down exactly when the arc will end. The story is called "Paying the Piper", which ironically has very little to do with Piper. It had to be after "Just Imagine" an episode encompassed within my "Imaginary Fiends" rewrite. The reason being that at that point neither Chris nor Wyatt knows what happened to Phoebe and Coop. I will try for more Wyatt / Melinda (and if I can Chris / Melinda) interaction. We'll see where that fits in.

Cirolane – I'm glad that you like my version of Phoebe's girls. Each is such her own person to me. Hope would agree with you about her being too old not to have her powers, but when magic came back only Ladybug had a power. She got Phoebe's power of levitation. Cilly got her power of empathy about three weeks later, but unlike Ladybug who must have come into her powers while magic was gone, Cilly really didn't come into her power until she was nineteen. She is the only one of the sisters that really had much to do with magic prior to magic returning, because she liked to use her cupid powers. I guess you could say more that she came into a new power at nineteen, since she did have her cupid powers as did Ladybug. Hope has neither. To avoid examples that people may or may not like, I bring to your attention the season one episode "Secrets and Guys". The young witch, Max Franklyn, came into his powers as a teenager, or maybe a preteen, but very close to the time of the story. I may be forgetting things. Maybe his mom bound his powers. I am pretty sure that Kevin in "Witches in Tights" hadn't had his powers very long or he would have learned more control over them. Anyway, we know that Phoebe and Wyatt (both ironically born in the manor) had powers in the womb. We know Chris didn't show any powers until he was about two. We know that Prue and Piper had their powers very young if not from the womb. We know that Paige was able to orb as a teenager, but nothing other than that . . . I would assume she probably could orb long before that. I have special plans for Hope and her power, but that will have to hold for a while.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Glad you are caught up. Hope you like this next very short chapter.

A really short chapter and believe it or not, the point isn't to put my warlock in the story, though that was the original thought. I realized that this gives me the opportunity to do something more important, but not until later when the results of this chapter become apparent. Vague enough for you? Sorry, but anything else seemed to give away what I meant.

* * *

Chapter Ten – Trouble Brewing

Across town in the house of warlock, Steve Kessler, the house was silent except for a phone conversation in the den. Books liked the walls of the den. It was neat except for a drawing taped to the wall by the lone window. It was a picture drawn by Steve's daughter of a man holding the hand of a girl. Above them were the words, "Daddy and Me". It was signed in the bottom right corner with only the letters DLK, Devia's initials.

The keyboard was sitting haphazardly on the computer monitor. There was a scrying bowl on the desk where the keyboard should be. Steve was standing by the computer chair talking on the phone with his brother-in-law. "Thanks for keeping her. Bye."

He hung up the phone and looked at the image in the scrying bowl. Though it was centered on Chris, it was not what drew and kept his attention. What did that was the woman sitting a few chairs away. Prue Halliwell.

Mumbling to himself, Steve said, "Never thought I'd see her alive," before he ran his fingers through the liquid in the bowl, dispersing the image. He took a step away from the desk and blinked out.

When he rematerialized he was in the underworld in a gather chamber of some sort. There were lots of demons around. He looked around, searching for someone specific. An evil grin grew on his face as he spotted who he was looking for. He walked up to a demon with scars on both cheeks. "How'd you like to put a Charmed One back in her grave?"

And though going up against the Charmed Ones was crazy, it didn't take much to convince this particular demon to take on the task.

* * *

Considering he usually doesn't have anyone to converse with, Steve really produces short chapters. My readers of the prose version don't even know his name yet. They find out in an episode called "Wyatt's Friend." No, the demon is not anyone you should recognize, just someone slightly crazy, or maybe slightly suicidal. I'm not sure which.

In addition I put up a poll on my fanfiction home page asking which of my original Charmed kids you like best. One vote so far. I put them in age order by the ages of their mothers, but fanfiction decided to mix it up to get rid of author prejudice. Okay then. Also, in response to perrycharmed, I posted the beginning of a story I am writing as a sequel to someone else's story, a story I betaed (is there a way to spell that?). The original story is called "Our Screwed Up Destiny" by JustEs and my sequel is called "Turning the Page of Destiny". While I really would love for you to read my story, I highly recommend reading OSUD first so that the AU in my story makes since it is based off of theirs (JustEs is Esmeralda and she wrote it with PrimroseEmpath).

Happy reading.


	11. A Father Daughter Moment

First a thank you to my reviewers:

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Glad you found that interesting.

du1387 – Yeah, anyway, you will get a Prue / Phoebe moment eventually. Now, whether either of them will be alive when it happens I am not going to say, but you will get one. After all if they fail Prue could chose to become a ghost rather than stay alive and I'm not saying whether or not Phoebe is alive or not. You'll know on Prue by the end of the story and Phoebe in "Paying the Piper" which is episode . . . counting . . . twenty, I think. The fun thing about Steve is that the boys don't even know he exists. They don't know someone is organizing these attacks.

Cirolane – Yeah, yeah, my big bad is named Steve. Okay, so it has be laughing too. Hey, his dead sister (also an evil warlock) was called Angel (her name was Angela, Angelina, Angelica, something like that). How's that for irony? Considering the name "Stephen" means crown, there is pretty much no rhyme or reason as to why he has his name. It's just his name. I do this thing with characters. I play them without a name until they let me know . . . or someone else lets me know what their names are. I'll be holding an imaginary conversation between two characters and out will pop a mention of some character I didn't plan on or who didn't have a name before. One such conversation yielded the fact that a character in one of my stories named Nicholas had a sister who was a bit flirty named Madeleine, and a really young (elementary age) sister named Kendra, along with two brothers, one of who still doesn't have a name. The other one has gained the name Terrence, has a wife named Margaret, and daughter named Anna. Glad my explanation on Hope's powers helped. I really look forward to letting you know Hope's powers.

* * *

Chapter Eleven – A Father Daughter Moment

Piper entered the front hall and headed over to the door. She pulled open the door and grinned at the sight of Victor. "Hey, Dad. It's good to see you." She pulled the door opened the rest of the way and wrap her arms around him. "Everyone's in the kitchen."

Getting straight to the point, or else he was not going to be able to get it out, Victor spouted out, "You said you had a daughter and that Prue was married with daughters."

Piper nodded and got out of the way so that her dad could come in.

Victor entered the house and closed the door behind him. He turned to Piper and he asked, "How?"

"It's a different reality," Piper told him with a shrug. "So many things are different. To be honest, we haven't talked much about how."

Abandoning that lining of question, Victor tried another of the questions that had ran through his mind as he had driven there. "What's Prue's husband's name? Is he another one of your magical beings? I mean you married a whitelighter and Phoebe married a cupid."

"Well, he is," Piper began before realizing that maybe that wasn't still accurate, "or maybe was, a whitelighter, but she grew up with him. He died saving us, so don't you dare get annoyed that he's a whitelighter."

"Someone you grew up with?" Victor asked trying hard to remember anyone his girls had grown up with. "Someone I knew?"

"Yep," Piper agreed. "Andy."

The name sparked a memory for Victor, "Dark haired kid who liked to dress up as a cowboy?"

"That's the one," Piper agreed. "They have two daughter, Pat and Vicki."

Victor looked at her startled. "Vicki? As in Victoria?"

Piper grinned. "And quite proud of it, I do believe."

Victor grinned. He didn't see Prue stopped in the doorway, just watching them. A little pride and more than a little awe in his voice, Victor said, "Prue named her daughter after me."

"And Grams," Prue told him, announcing her presence.

Victor looked up. His eyes widened at the sight of his long dead daughter. "Prue."

A catch in her voice, Prue returned the one word greeting, "Dad." She took slow steps toward Victor and Piper and then faster ones. She stopped a few feet from them and in the same tone repeated, "Dad."

Victor closed the distance between them and opened his arms hesitantly.

Prue accepted the unspoken offer and hugged him tight. "I missed you so much." She pulled away and looked at him. "I'm sorry I left things as I did. I've had so many years to regret that we never fixed things between us."

"I missed you, too, Prudence," Victor told her, emotion filling his voice.

Prue looked at him for several seconds. A grin grew on her face and she started to laugh. "I never would have believed I missed hearing you call me that." And miss it she did, because with it came a dad she had come to miss so very much. "Come meet my family." She headed back toward the dining room.

Victor turned to Piper. "I will never understand magic, but if it gives me back the daughter it took, I guess I can learn to forgive it for taking her in the first place."

Piper grinned. "I know what you mean. Come on. I want you to meet my Melinda, too."

Victor looked at her. "Melinda? Is that your daughter?"

Piper nodded and led the way toward the dining room.

* * *

Okay, you guys are caught up to me again . . . sort of. I am in the middle of the next scene. It's kind of a long one and I am having trouble making it work. Alanna and Janice crack me up. You'll understand, I think, when you read it. Keep in mind that Victor died in the other reality about fourteen years ago, so Prue has had a lot of time to wish she could see him, again, and they don't do much ghost summoning in that reality, some but not a lot.


	12. Unwanted Interruptions

First a thank you to my reviewers: atlan2007

ariasjunior – Welcome to the story and to my version of a Charmed spin off.

du1387 – Thank you. I'm glad you think I did with good with that. I always feel nervous when dealing with situations we don't normally see the characters in and that one sure is one. I actually meant to have that a lot sooner, but somehow the characters never got around to calling Victor. Go figure.

Cirolane - Laugh. Yes, Victoria is after Victor. A lot of the kids are named after someone. Pat is Patricia Phoebe after Patty and Phoebe. Vicki is Victoria Penelope after Victor and Grams, as stated in the chapter. Melinda is Melinda Halliwell (yes, that is her middle name not a hyphenated last name) after Melinda Warren and of course the Halliwells. Wyatt and Chris, of course were explained on the show, well, all except the Perry part. I decided Perry was Leo's mom's maiden name. Ladybug is Prudence Brianna after Prue and Brianna Warren, the ancestor who shared Prue's power. Cilly is Pricilla Venus. She's about the least named after anyone that you can get as Pricilla is just because it starts with the letter "P" and Venus is because Venus was the Goddess of Love and her son, Eros, was Cupid's Roman counterpart. Hope is Pearl Hope after the aunt Pearl that owned a couch in the manor which Phoebe mentioned ones and Hope well, I guess that one's even less defined than Cilly's because I just thought it fit or something like that. Alanna and Janice are Alanna Samantha after Jack Allen Halliwell and Samuel Wilder and Janice Patricia after Allen's sister, Janice, and Patty. Hank is Henry Wallace after his dad, but I decided on the Wallace as being Henry's mother's maiden name. I'm sure that's more about their names than you wanted to know, but I hope you enjoyed the little bit of trivia.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Wow. I'm glad you liked it.

Best guess is that after this chapter there will be about five more chapters and an epilogue, but don't hold me to that, because I might just end up with more. It's at least that though.

* * *

Chapter Twelve – Unwanted Interruptions

"I finally get to meet him," Vicki said excitedly to no one in particular.

Prue smiled as she reentered the room. "Yes, you finally get to meet him." She walked over to where Andy was sitting.

Pat's head turned toward the door at the sound of more footsteps. As Piper and Victor entered the room a big grin danced on her lips. Turning to look at her mom she asked, "That's Grandpa, isn't it."

Prue smiled back. "Yes, that is."

Pat pushed back her chair. She froze as she noticed her hands. In her excitement she had forgotten about them, but now they were worse. Her wrists and about an inch of her arms had been added to her transparent hands. Her eyes widening, she looked at Piper. "Aunt Piper, did you warn him?"

Piper frowned and turned to Victor. "Remember I told you that unless we figured out something we'll lose them, well this morning they noticed that they had started to fade from view."

Victor frowned and looked at the unfamiliar people in the room, the granddaughters he had never met. "They look fine to me."

Reluctantly, Pat held up her hands, showing to everyone what she had already noticed, that she was faded even more.

Victor stared. He didn't know what he expected, but her transparent hands weren't it.

Alanna frowned. "They're worse."

Pat nodded, miserable.

Seeing Pat's hands once more brought to Chris' mind memories of a day he'd rather forget, the day he almost didn't exist. Mumbling to himself, he said, "Just like when I almost didn't exist because Mom and Dad almost didn't conceive me."

"Excuse me?" Melinda asked, surprised.

Paige's eyebrows rose as she too remembered that day. "That was an interesting day. We almost lost all three of you in one swoop."

Realizing that he needed to make some sort of comment Chris tried to make it sound like it was amusing as he gave his aunt a lazy grin. "There's nothing much creepier than trying to get your parents to conceive you."

Melinda turned to Wyatt, realizing she wasn't going to get much of an understandable answer from Chris. "What on earth?"

Unfortunately for her, Wyatt didn't know so he just shrugged. "I'm going with, I don't know and I don't think I want to."

Melinda laughed as did several other people in the room, the ones who didn't know what Chris and Paige were talking about.

Despite being successful in making it sound amusing, Chris scowled, disliking anything about his travels to the past being center stage. "How about we get back to work on finding a solution to our problem?"

A demon with scars on both cheeks, the same one Steve had talked to earlier, shimmered into the room behind Pat and Vicki. At first no one noticed, but then Prue saw the demon as it snuck behind her daughters. Her first instinct was to protect her daughters, so without thinking she yelled, "Stay away from my daughters!" Her head jerked a little as she automatically reacted, sending the demon across the room with her eyes. Then, seeing that is worked she blinked, a stunned expression on her face. Her powers were working, again!

* * *

This whole battle scene coming up is because I wanted them to find out that Prue could use her powers. After the first attempt in the boys' apartment she hasn't tried to use them. For her that was elder interference as were some other things that they don't know about yet. I did have fun writing this battle scene that's coming up. I hope that when you review and I post it that you enjoy it, too.


	13. Not Quite What It Seems

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Cirolane – I find the fact that his name is Steve hilarious, too. His daughter, Devia, has a more demonic name than he does. And yes, when the boys finally find out about him and find out his name there is going to be a "What on earth?!" moment. Those two just need to sit down and compare notes. Sure his is multi-timeline and time travel and hers is just interdimensional travel, but they both know a totally different time line and it would be so interesting for them to just sit there and compare notes. No time for that though. They have other priorities.

du1387 – Yes, Prue has her powers back. They were kind of blocked at the beginning, but she has them back. Fuller explanation to come in the story, not full, but fuller. The person talking doesn't know everything. I had fun with that Melinda and Wyatt dialogue.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – I feel for Wyatt, too, not knowing what is going on, but it is fun confusing him. It really is.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen – Not Quite What It Seems

Piper didn't take the time to consider Prue's sudden knowledge that she had her powers back. She just flicked her wrists and the demon exploded. That should have been it, except two more identical demons appeared behind where it had stood. "Not today!" she exclaimed, annoyed.

Deciding that with this many witches in the room, they could spare her for a moment, Paige stood and orbed out in search of some potions to try on the demon.

Janice twisted around in her seat, deciding it was a good time to try out her newly discovered powers on an actual demon. She held out both hands, sending a blast of freezing air at the two demons, freezing them in a thin layer of ice as the cold air combined with the water molecules in the air.

Alanna grinned at her twin, more than eager to show off her powers. She held out her own hands and sent a steady stream of fire at the demons. The extreme temperature change caused the two demons to explode. "Awesome!"

Janice laughed. Her voice caught as four new demons, identical to the last three, right down to the twin scars on their cheeks, appeared behind where the last two demons had been. Janice shoved back her chair and climbed out, no longer amused by the situation. "I think it replicates."

One of the demons shimmered out and appeared behind Prue. Since blowing up the demon didn't seem to work, Piper waved her hands. The demons froze as did Leo, Henry, Andy, Melinda, Pat, and Vicki.

Paige orbed back in, potions in hands.

Prue moved away from the demon behind her.

Alanna pushed back her chair and got to her feet as Janice moved against the wall, so as to not get caught with an attack from behind. Alanna joined her twin, a frown on her face.

"What'd I miss?" Paige asked as she looked around. Noticing that half the room was frozen she turned a frown at Piper. "Piper, unfreeze my husband, and your husband for that matter, and everyone else."

Chris chuckled as he stood.

Piper waved her hand individually at the different family members so as not to unfreeze the demons.

As they were unfrozen Andy stood and gathered his daughter to him. He looked at the demons. "If I thought a gun would do any good against them, I'd try to get my hands on one."

"This is a really bad time not to have my powers," Pat commented, looking worried at the demons. "I'd charbroil those demons."

"More likely the counter top or the table," Vicki teased. "I've seen you trying to use your powers."

Paige chuckled.

Piper looked at her, remembering Paige's question when she orbed back in. "What you missed was the demon multiplied both times we vanquished it, so now instead of one demon, we have four."

Paige sobered up fast. "I'll get the book, see if there is anything in there."

"Don't bother," Andy told her.

All eyes turned to Andy. Anyone still sitting got out of their chairs figuring it would be easier to avoid an attack while standing.

Prue looked at her husband, surprised. "You know how to defeat it?"

Andy grinned. "I did have charges other than you, you know."

"So what do we do?" Piper asked, deciding that listening to Andy was probably her best bet.

"Only one of them is real," Andy informed everyone. "The other's are illusions, illusions that can hurt you, but illusions all the same. They turn back into one when they have finished their mission. Cut off the head of the real one and vanquish the rest. So long as the head isn't attached when you vanquish it, it will dissolve once the rest are vanquished. Get the wrong head and it will keep duplicating."

"Cut off," Piper started before trailing off as her freeze unfroze. This time she concentrated on the demons and waved her hands. Only the demons froze. "We really, really don't have time for this," Piper commented, again, wanting to get back to the task of trying to keep four people from ceasing to exist.

"On the bright side," Melinda told her looking wearily at the demons, "they are attacking people capable of defending themselves rather than defenseless innocents."

Chris laughed. "That would be the side to look at. I guess we'd better figure out which one is the real one and lop off its head. Ideas, Uncle Andy?"

Andy shook his head. "Unfortunately, that part of it seemed to be a matter of trial and error."

"How did your charge figure it out?" Chris asked, curious.

Andy laughed. "He got frustrated with vanquishes not working and started throwing kitchen utensils at it since that was what was handy. After he accidentally knocked off the head of one of the illusions and noticed that it didn't automatically duplicate . . ." Andy trailed off as the demons started moving, again.

Piper waved her hands and the demons froze, again. "Continue."

Andy smiled. Such a matter of fact manor she had. Freeze demon, get back to conversation on how to defeat it. "Right. After he noticed that they didn't automatically duplicate, he decided to vanquish the body, but that didn't work, so he tried to cut off the head of another of the images, since it couldn't do anything without its head. That time he got the right one, so when he tried vanquishing it, it didn't replicate."

Piper turned to Paige. "Can you find a large knife in the kitchen for me?"

"What drawer would that be in right now?" Paige asked.

Chris shook his head. "Forget it. I'll find one." Chris ran into the kitchen after a knife.

Wyatt frowned. "I think I'm going to go look for an axe." With that, he orbed out.

"Boys!" Alanna exclaimed with a snort. "They sure are eager to chop it up."

Janice muffled a laugh.

* * *

I actually meant to post a chapter yesterday. Thing is I went on a writing spree. The scenes just kept coming, two of what I thought would be two of the hardest scenes in this story to right and they just came to me almost faster than I could write. My poor hand had cramps by the end of it. I would have posted, but by the time I forced myself to stop it was 2:15 in the morning and I wake up at 7:20. No way could I manage work on much less sleep than that. So you get it today, and it is only part of the battle scene, because the battle scene is long, really long, and it was fun to write. Sometimes you just want to whack things. For the next chapter and the next part of the battle, review and I will post another chapter. Hope you enjoyed this and your first glimpse of Alanna's and Janice's powers.


	14. Unhurried, Unworried

First a thank you to my reviewers:

atlan2007 – I came up with the demon and then I realized I didn't have a clue how to defeat him. Kind of a bad idea. I enjoyed this battle.

perrycharmed – Are you the only one? Well, there is Alanna. She's quite worried about that. Me, for better or for worse, I know how it's going to turn out. Now, other readers may be worried. They just haven't mentioned it.

Much as I love this episode, it is such a relief to be almost done. I finished the majority of the story. Now all I have left is to locate the epilogue and fix it so that it fits any alterations to the storyline I might have made since I wrote it months ago. I have started on the writing of the next episode "The Demon of Confusion" and I'm plotting how I want to make some beginning credits. If someone would like to volunteer to make opening credits I have a song chosen for them along with approximately what I want in the credits. I am not that good with that kind of thing, so I would love it if someone would make them for me, but once I relocate the stuff I need, I will attempt to make them if no one else has offered. For six season (not doing all of them now) I need at least nine credits do to various cast changes mid-season, probably ten. I have two cast changes for this season, since this season has a lot in the way of introducing everything and everyone.

I hope you guys like this next chapter.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen – Unhurried, Unworried

Piper turned her attention back to the rest of the room. "In the mean time, what do we do? My freezes generally last shorter and shorter periods of time. Despite an increased area affected, I doubt that has changed."

As if on cue, the demons started to move.

Piper waved her hands, again, freezing only the demons. "If nothing else, I am getting practice at controlling my increased freezing power."

"That's nothing," Paige told her. "Watch this." Paige closed her eyes in thought. She opened them and called out, "Bookshelf." A bookshelf appeared in the room in front of her.

Piper's eyes widened. "Did you just move that from upstairs?"

"Nope," Paige grinned. "My house."

Janice and Alanna looked at each other.

"Ever since magic came back last month," Alanna began.

"Mom's powers have been doing weird things," Janice continued.

"She's been able to move bigger things," Alanna added.

"And she's been able to move them from farther away," Janice put in.

"At least that's what she tells us," Alanna informed everyone, since neither twin had any real reference point for their mom's powers.

Victor groaned. "More magic."

Prue laughed. "Don't worry, Dad. It's good magic." She looked questioningly at her sisters. "It is, right?"

Piper shrugged. "I haven't figured out the source. What about you, Paige?"

"Nope," Paige denied, "but it's happened to Phoebe, too."

"That's right," Piper remembered. "Dad you mentioned that to us, when you came over a couple of weeks ago."

Victor nodded. "She said she is able to control her premonitions better and remember them better."

The demons started moving again at the same time Chris reentered the room with a knife and Wyatt orbed in with an axe.

Piper waved her hands and the demons refreeze, again. "Let's figure this out quick. Believe it or not, I'm starting to feel a strain from this."

Pat cringed as she looked at the sharp tools. "I don't like this."

Chris looked at the knife and then at the demons. He raised twin eyebrows at Andy. "How exactly did your charge _accidentally_ cut off the demon's head?"

"I didn't ask," Andy admitted.

Wyatt walked over to the demon behind Prue with the axe. When Prue had moved clear of the demon, Wyatt raised the axe and swung it around to hit the demon. To his shock he met no resistance and the head dropped to the floor. Wyatt reached out and poked the demon. When his hands started to go through it, he jumped away almost dropping the axe. "I guess that's how."

The three remaining demons unfroze, the decapitated one falling to the ground, and one shimmered out before Piper could refreeze them. The demon shimmered back in behind Prue and grabbed her.

"Not so soft right now," Prue mumbled as she tried to break free. "Someone blow that demon up. Paige, try one of those potions. See if it works." That said, she focused her attention on the demon's arms around her and forced them apart telekinetically.

Paige threw one of the potions at the decapitated demon on the ground and two more showed up in its place.

Prue scowled and threw the demon behind her into the wall with a wave of her arm. "That one next," she told no one in particular as she glared at the demon that had attacked her.

Piper waved her arms and the room unfroze, but only long enough for her to quickly wave them again, and refreeze all the demons. "Boys."

Wyatt and Chris looked at each other, grinning at the unspoken request.

Alanna and Janice looked at each other, groaning. "I sure hope Hank never gets like that," Alanna told her twin.

Janice looked at her, skeptical. "Do you even pay attention? We are talking about Hank, the guy who uses his whitelighter power to reheat things on army figurines to burn them."

"True," Alanna admitted.

Pat looked at the twins with raised eyebrows, the memory of a long ago conversation between her sobbing aunt Paige and her mom on the anniversary of her cousin, Henry's death. The cousin she knew only from pictures and a handful of stories was the same Hank these two called brother. At least she was pretty sure he was and if he was, then it didn't bode well for the teenage witchlighter. Maybe the fact that magic had apparently been gone for all of his life up until now would work in his favor. It certainly had worked to keep him alive thirteen years longer than he had lived in her reality.

Not knowing the thoughts running through Pat's head, Chris took his knife and headed over to the demon that had grabbed Prue. Without preamble he swung down and cut through the demon's neck. When he, too, met no resistance, he turned around and shrugged. "I think, perhaps, he had to concentrate to solidify. Who'd like to do the honors?"

* * *

Now, that you have read this new chapter I am hoping to get some reviews. I love the new ability to check how often people have read something. According to last check fifty people read the previous chapter, but only two of them reviewed. I want to add an additional thanks here for those two that reviewed as well as a thank you in advance to the people who have been reading and reviewing this story that I just have to assume have been too busy to review and will do so later.


	15. Fair's Fair

First a thank you to my patient reviewers:

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Glad you caught up. Now I am too. Hope you enjoy the rest of this story, though of course this is only one of many to come.

Cirolane – I'm sorry you haven't been feeling good. Don't worry, the twins don't do that too often. That's just me wanting to do that. It actually was probably a bad idea, because while Alanna is likely to do something like that it's somewhat out of Janice' character. It is totally something Hank would do, using his powers like that. And yes, boys and sharp objects.

gabrieldarke – Well, you will find out what will happen to them in a few chapters or so. Glad you liked the girls' conversation about their cousins and about their brother.

PiperPaigeP3 – I'm glad you have liked the story so far. Let me know what you are confused on and I will try and answer your questions, along with point you in the direction of what stories might contain the answers. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the series as much as you have enjoyed this one. Please review the other stories when you read them to let me know your thoughts on them.

Sorry, I was busy the last few days, mostly writing this story. Good news is, I finished the episode. Remember how I said a chapter or two back I thought it would be about six chapters more . . . yeah, eleven including this one and an epilogue.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen – Fair's Fair

Alanna looked at Janice. "Can you give me some demon ice cycles, please?"

Janice gave her sister a tiny nod as she walked around the table and held out her hands. Cold blasts of air formed around her as ice blasts from her hands encompassing the demon in a solid block of ice. She tossed a smile back at her twin. "I'm ready for some demon shish kabob."

"Happy to oblige," Alanna tossed back. "Hope this is the right demon," she added as she held out her hands and fire streamed from them to the demon's frozen, decapitated body.

Once more the extreme temperature change caused the demon to explode, but this time he stayed gone and four illusionary friends dissolved into nothing as did his head.

Alanna grinned at her twin. "That rocked."

Janice chuckled. "Just don't put me down for another one of those for at least a day or two."

"Good job, girls," Paige praised her daughters as Henry breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey!" Wyatt protested. "They didn't do all the work."

"No," Paige said as she looked at Prue and Piper. "I'd say it was a family effort."

"I'd agree," Piper concurred. "Now, let's keep this family together and figure out a way to keep our new members."

"I want to meet Grandpa first," Pat announced. She hadn't seen him since she was only a year old, so her memories were nonexistent.  


Piper turned around, startled. She had momentarily forgotten Victor was there. "Sorry, Dad. With everything that just happened . . ." She trialed off and smiled. "I'll let Prue introduce you to her family, but first let me introduce you to my Melinda."

Melinda looked over at Piper, a smile on her lips. She walked over to Victor and stopped. She looked down at her arms. About half of her arm below her elbow was transparent. Trying ignore that for the moment, she looked back at Victor. "I know you don't know me, but I remember you and it's really good to see you, again. I'm Melinda." She looked down at her hands, again.

Victor saw how much that bothered her, and though the see through arms really bothered him, a lot, he decided she came first, this granddaughter of his. "Do you want a hug or not?"

Melinda looked up, bewildered.

"Look you're Piper's daughter, right?" Victor asked, smiling at her. When she nodded he continued, "Which makes you Chris' sister, right?"

"I guess," Melinda admitted. After all, weird as it seemed, these two young men where her brothers for as long as she existed at least. "Why?"

Chris chuckled, causing Wyatt to give him a look. "What did I miss?"

It was Victor who answered. "The first time I met Chris, he ran into the room and hugged me without even introducing himself first. I had no idea who this grungy stranger in a trench coat was."

"Hey!" Chris protested. "I had good reason for wearing those clothes."

"Chasing a demon or something," Victor commented. "Not a good reason in my mind."

"Checking out a lead," Chris informed him, trying to sound annoyed. "And I think the point of this conversation was that you wanted Melinda to give you a hug."

Melinda grinned at Chris' words. "That I can oblige." She closed the gap between her and Victor and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. "I love you, Grandpa."She let go of him and stepped away.

Victor looked around. His eyes stopped on Pat and Vicki still in Andy's protective grip. Victor walked over to them. "You must be Prudence's girls."

Vicki's eyes widened and she turned to look at Pat. "Did he just call Mom Prudence?"

Pat nodded. "That's what he calls her. Mom told me." She looked up at Andy. "We're safe 

now, Dad. You can let go."

Andy smiled down at her. "Sometimes it's hard to give up the instinct to protect even in safe times." _And these times are far from safe,_ he mentally added even as he let go of Pat and Vicki.

Pat walked over to Victor. "Fair's fair. I want a hug, too."

"Life's not fair," Vicki said, quoting words she had heard all her life.

Victor was having none of that. He pulled Pat into a hug and over her head informed her sister that, "Maybe not, but this grandpa is."

"In that case," Vicki began, a smile warming on her face, as she crossed to Victor's side and latched onto him.

Victor smiled and put one arm around her as well, hugging both girls. He looked over the tops of their heads at Andy. "I guess that makes you Prudence's husband."

"Andrew Trudeau, sir," Andy agreed.

"So Piper tells me," Victor admitted.

"We have met before," Andy offered. "At least I think you've met me. I seem to remember seeing you as a kid. Later . . ." He trailed off, not wanting to bring up painful thoughts.

Victor let it pass. "I know I didn't do so great with them."

"We almost met once later," Andy remembered, trying to differentiate between memories before and after time split, but then that had come only after he was dead, and this was clearly before then. "You had come over shortly after Prue and I started dating, again. I just dropped her off at the restaurant thought. I didn't come in. After I died, I saw you, but you sure didn't see me. Besides that's where the realities diverge, a few months after I died."

"How about we don't talk about the fact that you just conversationally brought up the fact that you died, nearly thirty years ago," Victor suggested, uncomfortable about the idea, "and yet are standing in front of me, talking to me?"

Andy chuckled, "Deal."

"How about we deal with the fact that I don't want to lose him, again," Prue suggested, uncomfortable with talking about Andy's death for an entirely different reason than her father, "like I did nearly thirty years ago and see if we can fix it so they can stay?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Piper agreed.

"Let's do this," Paige concurred, "and this time, make it work."

"You're going to try my idea, Aunt Paige?" Wyatt asked, pretending like he actually believed they would. It wasn't that he wouldn't be thrilled if they were, but he just didn't think they would. Maybe they wouldn't need to or maybe he was wrong. He just wanted the chance to find out.

Paige looked at him with eyebrows raised. "How did you get that out of what I said?"

Wyatt shrugged, a smile on his face. "You said you want to make it work."

"You got to give him points for tenacity," Chris smiled.

"Not stubbornness," Wyatt argued, "confidence."

"From what I read of your idea," Paige told him, "if it backfired, we'd probably end up losing you, too. I don't think that's a good idea."

"I'm willing to risk it," Wyatt informed her, his eyes resting on Melinda, Andy, Pat, and Vicki, before coming back to Paige. "Besides, I don't think it will backfire."

"Enough talk of this," Piper announced. "We aren't doing anything that will chance us losing anyone else."

Wyatt shrugged. "Let me know if you change your mind. For now, I guess I'll try and come up with some other idea."

Janice broke the slight tension caused by Wyatt's renewed pushed for his idea. "Aunt Piper?"

Piper looked at her niece, startled as if she forgot she was there. "Yes, Janice."

"Other than having learned how to focus my freezing, I'm afraid I don't really know much about magic," Janice admitted. "I just came over so I could have a chance to get to know my cousins, so if the worst happened, I'd have memories. Do you really need Pat and Vicki upstairs? Because if you don't I was thinking maybe Alanna and I could do something with them, like a game or something."

At a look from Piper, Prue nodded. "If they want to, they can play a game with you."

Having gained Prue's permission, Janice turned to Pat and Vicki. "Interested?"

Pat grins. "Sure. Someone else can keep track of ideas. I'm rather useless with magic, too." Eyes older than they should be she turned to her mom and said, "Given the chance, I'll learn."

Since she had Pat's answer, Janice turned to look at Vicki.

Vicki frowned and looked at her parents. "What about Dad? He's not exactly magical either, at least not witchy magic."

"Neither is my dad," Janice told her, sending a smile at her father, "but from what I can tell your father has a great deal of knowledge on magical things. Certainly more than my dad, but they are both welcome to join us."

Vicki looked imploringly at Andy. "Please, Dad."

Andy looked at his wife, wanting to support all of his family.

Prue smiled. "Go have some fun. We'll call you if we need you. Just let us know if something happens. We'll have Melinda with us to help us know if things are working right." Realizing that Melinda might have other plans, she turned to look at her niece. "Or were you planning on joining them?"

"Oh, no," Melinda denied. "I may not be the best at magic, but I want to be with Mom and Dad. I'll be in the attic, helping however I can, even if that is as a guinea pig." _I want to fix this mess I made._

Piper smiled at her daughters words. Turning her attention to her dad, she asked, "And you, Dad? Where do you want to go?"

Victor looked torn as he considered his options. Finally, he sighed. "I'm afraid I'm just not much use magic." There was also the fact that it still kind of freaked him out. "With games, however, I can hold my own."

Piper chuckled. "Okay. Have fun, you guys. We'll be upstairs."

* * *

Hope you guys like the chapter. I'm in a good mood, because I actually finished this story. Hope that you like how it ends out as much as I do. Review and I will post the next chapter.


	16. No Touching

First a thank you to my reviewers: atlan2007

Cirolane – A very interesting question. Unfortunately I'm going to have to say no comment. If they do succeed, you will find out the answer to your question and if they don't it won't be relevant. Scratch that, I will answer a little. Andy is currently not a whitelighter, so even if he survives he would have to become one again to get back his powers. Prue, Pat, and Vicki's powers are connected to their existence, as is Melinda's, but as you pointed out that's slightly different. Prue's powers were blocked by the elders at the beginning, but since she exists the powers exist with her. She does not at present have any powers that differed between her and this realities' Prue. In other words, she can't astral project, and any power from "Witch Hunts" that I haven't come up with yet. She will have to relearn those powers . . . if she chooses life. Pat and Vicki are in the same situation, except they don't currently exist. Melinda's powers, as you say, are Wyatt's and as such she can't have them, at all. If they succeed, the twice blessed status will exist, but not the powers. She would actually have to gain new ones.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – I'm glad you liked it.

I'm coming to the parts that decide the fate of these five people (yes, including Prue, since she has to chose if she will stay alive or not). I stayed up until about two-thirty in the morning a week or so ago, because I couldn't stop writing. My emotions were on edge, because this whole section was messing with me. What makes up the next four or so chapters, was some of the easiest and tense writing I have done perhaps ever. I am not saying for sure that it will hit you that way, only that it did me and I rarely react that way.

On an unrelated note, I just watched Bones and I am freaking out, the good kind. Man I wish this was more than just one episode. I miss Zack so much in those first three episodes.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen – No Touching

One o'clock found things no better. Leo was over by the wall of potion shelves, looking for some potion that might help, one they hadn't tried yet.

Prue was looking through the Book of Shadows. They had tried countless spells it seemed, but none of them had worked.

Chris had Pat's notepad with ideas since Pat was still downstairs playing games with her sister and the Mitchell twins. Most of the ideas on it had been crossed through as failures.

Wyatt was sweeping up broken pieces of glass from potion bottles that had once contained potions that failed. Having no skill at potion making, he was no use there and he couldn't seem to come up with any new ideas, just the one.

Paige was at the potion table working on a potion. She had spent much of the afternoon not moving from there, assisting Piper or even coming up with her own potions. Since Piper was downstairs fixing lunch, she was for the moment working without her.

In Piper's place, Melinda stood, trying to help out with the potions. She wasn't as good as her mom, but at least she knew a tablespoon from a teaspoon and could do a great job of cooking, so that helped. In the hours since breakfast she had progressively gotten more transparent, to the point where her arms were now completely transparent as where her legs to her knees. She moved to grab something off the table and her hand went right through it. She looked up at Paige and sighed. "Now, I can't even tough things. We have less than six hours and I can't even touch things." Frustration prompted her to ask, "What use am I?"

Wyatt looked up. "You aren't giving up, are you?"

Melinda shook her head. "No, I'm just frustrated. This whole thing is just frustrating. Because of me and my spell not only is everyone I know gone for good, but soon I will be the cause of the loss of the only ones remaining."

"You have to stop thinking like that," Chris informed her, his voice low and serious.

Melinda's shoulders' slumped. "How would you have me think? I did this."

"As I did to a reality I was from," Chris informed her in a voice so monotone, everyone almost missed what he actually said. Sometimes the lines between who was him and who was this other Chris seemed to blur, but though he liberally switched between first and third person, he always knew which actually was which.

"What?" Melinda looked at him, curious and confused.

Wyatt's stood so still, he hardly breathed. _Is Chris actually going to tell her something about the other reality? Will it be something that might give me a clue as to why he never talks about it to me?_

Thinking back to earlier conversations, Melinda asked, "Does this have something to do with what you said earlier about almost preventing your conception and what Wyatt said about you having memories of another time line?"

Chris nodded. "Exactly that. I don't agree with everything he did," he told her switching to using third person to refer to the other Chris, the one whose memories where held within his mind, whose life he hadn't actually lived. "I hated some things he did." A certain dead Valkyrie came to mind, followed quickly but lie after lie told to his parents and his aunts and anyone else he cared to speak to. "But he went back in time knowing he was leaving behind his reality, knowing that everything from that time line would be gone. And you know what, knowing what I know of that time line, I would do that again in a heartbeat."

"Things must have been bad," Melinda commenting, wondering how they could have been worse than what she had lived through, but thinking by the way he said it that they must have been, knowing that if there was ever a time to ask him about what happened, it wasn't then.

"That's not a topic I want to discuss," Chris told her, confirming what Melinda had thought.

"Someday you will," Melinda assured him. _If not me, then it will be someone else. Maybe if I'm around you will want to share it with me, but maybe that won't even matter._ "I hope when the time comes, I'm around to discuss horror stories." She had no doubt that they were exactly that.

Chris smiled a little. "You know I hope when I am ready, you're around to discuss it with. I think you might just understand."

"What about me?" Wyatt protested, finally speaking, knowing he wasn't learning much of anything today. "Did you forget me?"

"No," Chris shook his head, "but it will be a lot longer before I am ready to discuss it with you."

"Whatever I did," Wyatt began before shaking his head and correcting himself with, "whatever _he _did in the other reality, I can take it."

"That's the thing," Chris told him, sadness in his voice. "I don't want you to have to. It wasn't you, but I know you." If Wyatt knew what had happened in that other reality, if he knew some of the people his evil version had killed, he would feel guilty and he had no reason to. It wasn't him.

At that moment Piper enter the attic with a tray of sandwiches. "Sorry I took so long. Things are worse downstairs. Pat tried picking something up and she couldn't."

Melinda sighed as she acknowledge, "Same here."

"No luck while I was gone I take it," Piper commented, unnecessarily.

"None," Melinda agreed.

"I'm going to go downstairs and check on my family," Prue informed them. She headed toward the door, stopping at the sound of Piper's voice.

Piper nodded, "I understand." _I felt the same way about getting back up here._ She may not have known Melinda long, but she was still mother enough to be worried about her.

Prue sighed as she left the attic.

Piper turned to the remaining people in the attic and asked, "Do we know what we are trying next?"

Chris nodded, his face grim. The ideas were getting less and less likely and more and more ridiculous, but they were all they had.

* * *

So what did you guys think of the chapter? Love, hate, or somewhere in between, I would love to hear your thoughts.


	17. The Binding Spell

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Cirolane – I'm really glad you like it. I know I say that a lot. I admit to being glad when people enjoy my writing, but this one as I said was one of those things that really got to me, so it especially. As for your idea about Wyatt's idea, well, that's not it, but then I hold to the idea that maybe Wyatt is the most powerful individual witch, and even on that I'm iffy, but he is not more powerful than the combined power of the Charmed Ones. Besides, Wyatt hasn't a clue what he can and can't do because of being twice blessed. It was an interesting idea and it certainly would cause the right level of panic.

angminer – I know you aren't on this chapter, but you will get here, so when you do welcome to this story. I hope you have already read part one, because if you haven't this is really, really going to be a confusing story.

PiperPaigeP3 – That is an interesting idea, but I think it would only last as long as the picture. However, it would be good as a stall tactic to give them more time to figure out the answer.

gabrieldarke – Well, I do tend to try not make them too long, except in "Witch Hunts". In "Witch Hunts" my chapters are on average, three or four times the length of the this. And the chapters could easily be longer, since the only story I worked on in "Witch Hunts" four chapters in with over seven thousand words and so far has two scenes. The first scene is only about half of the first chapter. On my character development. What you see in the stories is only part of what I do with them. My characters, sometimes even minor ones, like little Hannah from "Stolen Souls", and little Halli Westcott a character from the upcoming "The Power of Influence" (whose siblings are named Matthew, Piper, and Leah, if that tells you something about her parental background), get a lot of background development. I will choose a character and have them start a conversation. Some people roll play their characters on line to see how they will react to situations. I roll play them in my head. If you liked Hannah, she will be showing up again in a later episode. In fact if a character is alive at the end of an episode and has a name, there is a high probability they will show up, again. And to find out what Wyatt's crazy plan is, keep reading, because it's in this chapter. Hope that is lives up to expectations.

For everyone who has been waiting for Wyatt's crazy idea . . . I hope it lives up to expectations.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen – The Binding Spell

Five more hours and dozens of ideas later, everyone was gathered in the attic. There wasn't a smile in the room.

Wyatt was slumped on the floor, leaning against the right side of the couch.

Sitting on the couch to his left, Chris looked miserable. The notepad in his hands was nearly devoid of paper. A pile of crumpled papers at his feet gave testimony to one moment of frustration only a little while before.

At Chris' feet, Alanna and Janice sat with a board game in front of them. They had wanted to be up there, but having no real ideas to add, they had decided to continue the game in hopes of maybe distracting Pat and Vicki who sat on the other side of the game, both of them completely transparent.

Prue and Andy stood nearby with Andy watching their girls. Like the girls, Andy was completely transparent, to the point where he looked even more ghostly than some ghosts the girls had seen over the years.

Paige was staring out the window, sadness in her eyes for Prue and worry for her still missing son. Just as it had been almost a day since Prue and the others had shown up, it had been almost a day since she had seen her son.

Henry had his arm around his wife, lending her silent comfort.

Piper was at the potion table, mixing something, stubbornly refusing to give up despite a looming deadline maybe thirty-five or forty minutes away.

Leo was standing near Piper, silent. There was nothing really to say. It looked as if they had failed. They were out of ideas and nothing had worked.

Victor paced the attic, the inactivity getting to him, wanting to do something to help his daughter, to save his granddaughters so he could get to know them, and yes, to save his son-in-law as well despite Andy's whitelighter status. Victor supposed that Andy having grown up with Prue was in the man's favor. At least there weren't some fifty odd years between Prue and her husband the way there was between Piper and hers.

Melinda was standing by the door, miserable. She had even given up on leaning against the door frame, because she had gone through that once. It was the single most creepy experience in her life. She absently wondered why she didn't go through the floor, but supposed that if she wanted to, she probably would.

"We have to be missing something," Piper mumbled to herself. "There has to be a way."

"What if Kevin was right?" Chris asked, looking down at the blank notepad in his hands. "What if there isn't."

"He was wrong," Piper declared without looking up. With more desperation than confidence in her voice she added, "He has to be." She looked up, tears brimming in her eyes. "We can't lose them."

"And what if this is all we get?" Chris asked, seeing no other end in sight at this point. "What then?"

Piper ignored his question. "We still have over half an hour. We can think of something. We have to."

Having listened silently to the conversation up until then, Wyatt pushed himself back against the couch and pulled himself up. "We still haven't tried my idea."

"No," Piper shot down the idea. "Absolutely not." It was the one idea that actually was left on the list, somewhere in the crumpled papers at Chris feet. "I won't lose you, too."

"It's my idea and my risk," Wyatt insisted. "Aunt Prue, you said we try every idea, no mater what everyone else thought of them."

"That's true," Prue agreed. She glanced at Piper before continuing. "Perhaps I should be the one to try it." _If we can't find a way to fix this, I'd rather not remember anyway._

"No," Wyatt shook his head. "I don't want to chance it not working because you aren't enough of a part of this reality yet. I will do it." With those words, he resolved that he really would do this, regardless.

Piper shook her head. "No, Wyatt."

Wyatt gave her a half smile. "Sorry, Mom, but I am doing this. I love you." He looked across the room to where Melinda stood by the door. "Melinda?"

Melinda looked up, her eyes red.

"You said you are willing to play guinea pig," Wyatt stated.

Melinda nodded. "What do you need?"

"Come over here," Wyatt beckoned her without answering her question. As Melinda came over, Wyatt went over to the potion table and grabbed a piece of paper, one of the many he had worked on the night before. He stopped and hugged his mom, knowing that if he failed as everyone seemed to think he would, it could be the last time. "I love you, Mom."

Piper tried to hold onto her son, tried to stop him despite wanting desperately for him to succeed.

Wyatt shook his head and moved away. "I have to do this. If I don't, I'll always wonder and I don't want that feeling."

Piper sighed and let her hands drop to her side.

Wyatt hugged Leo and walked over to where Melinda was. "Hold out your hands."

Melinda looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Why? You can't touch them."

"That's okay," Wyatt assured her, though he didn't really know if it was. "Just hold them out."

Obediently, Melinda held out her hands and waited.

Wyatt took one last look at the paper in his hands, at the spell he had written the night before. He squatted down and put it on the floor. When he straightened up he held out his hands just over Melinda's transparent and intangible ones.

Not willing to watch should this fail, Chris look away. After all that he had gone through, he didn't want to lose Wyatt to this. _Please just let this work, for Wyatt if nothing else._

Piper squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face against Leo's chest as her husband hugged her close.

Wyatt forced himself to pay attention to what he was doing and not on what those around him where doing. His voice more sure and steady than he was at the moment, he began to chant. "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine. Our souls forever now entwine. Life and death may come to pass, our souls forever will attach. From now and to eternity, breathe life to this soul now dear to me."

As soon as Wyatt finished the spell, Chris felt a change.

* * *

I know. I'm torturing you. Do you think it worked? Or do you think it backfired? Obviously from Chris' reaction, something happened, but was it good or bad? You know you want to push that little review button and let me know you want me to continue. You know you do.

You finally got to know what Wyatt's idea was. Do you think the idea of binding his soul to them was sufficiently crazy to scare everyone like that?

The idea for Wyatt's spell was taken from the binding spell, so I give some credit Chris Levinson and Zach Estrin, authors of "Morality Bites". That spell is also where Wyatt got the idea of putting their hands together as the spell goes:

"I take your hand in mine  
And with this string I will entwine  
Your powers I'll forever bind  
From now until the end of time"


	18. Uh Oh!

First a thank you to my reviewers:

angminer – Okay, you have just officially made my day and believe me, I needed that today. I love that you spent the last week reading my stories and I am glad that you liked them enough to read them in a week, considering this is the eighth one in the series, so that's about one a day. In case you are wondering I am working on the next chapter of "Imaginary Fiends", but I don't know when it will be up, because I haven't heard back from my beta on the last thing I sent her which was a piece of this story and back this story up for weeks until I decided just to post it without being betaed.

atlan2007 – Yes, there are more stories, but that doesn't necessarily mean they succeeded here. Anyway, I'm glad you like the idea and you'll find out in a few seconds if it worked, so enjoy.

Cirolane – I know you don't want them to succeed, but let me assure you no matter what happens (unless of course Wyatt doesn't survive) Melinda will not mess up the dynamic between the brothers any more than one of their cousins might. If anyone was to do that the likely suspect would probably be Kali. She's the one that has that kind of relationship with both brothers. I have no intention of messing with the dynamic between the brothers . . . it's too much fun to write them.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Thank you much for reviewing both chapters. Hope you like this chapter and it's results.

I was trying to come up with a title for this and this one just came to me and it fits so well.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen – Uh Oh!

Chris' shoulders relaxed as he realized that Wyatt he not only still sensed Wyatt's presence, but the new and unfamiliar presence of Melinda as well. He looked up, his eyes wide as he realized that Wyatt's spell had actually worked.

Chris was the only one stunned. Melinda looked down at her hands, stunned as she saw that they were once more solid. She moved them up enough to touch Wyatt's hands, wonderment in her eyes. Was she actually safe?

"It worked," Chris stunned voice rang through the room.

Hearing Chris' voice Piper turned around in Leo's arms and looked at her son and daughter standing in the middle of the room, both fully solid. A sob of relief escaped her lips.

Melinda looked up at Wyatt, a disbelieving smile on her lips. "Thank you." She looked over at where Prue and Andy were standing protectively over Pat and Vicki. "You'd better hurry and try it on the other three. We don't have much time."

Wyatt nodded and walked over to Prue and Andy.

Melinda headed the other direction and stopped in front of Piper, giving her a hug, so glad she could do that, again.

"Wyatt?"

Wyatt stopped at the sound of Chris' voice and turned to face him.

"What made you think this would work?" Chris wanted to know.

Wyatt shrugged. "They don't exist right? I thought, maybe if you bound them to someone who did, it would bind them to here, to this reality just like your alternate self is bound to this reality through you."

"But that's only memories," Chris protested. "This is whole people we're talking about."

Wyatt shrugged, again. "It made sense to me." And really when it came to following through on his idea, that had been what it came down to. He looked at Prue's family, once more. "Who wants to try it next?"

"I will," Vicki announced as she stood and walked over to Wyatt. She held out her hands.

Wyatt smiled as he put his hands over hers. "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine. Our souls forever now entwine. Life and death may come to pass, our souls forever will attach. From now and to eternity, breathe life to this soul now dear to me."

Nothing happened.

* * *

Don't quite reading. The stories not over yet. Wyatt may have managed to turn Melinda solid, but why can't he do the same with Vicki?


	19. One Last Shot

First a thank you to my reviewers:

du1387 – Two excellent guesses and while my reasoning for Wyatt picking Melinda (mine not his) was because of the sort of twin connection, I couldn't use that for the reason, because it wouldn't work for Andy, since Prue isn't his blood relative. As for the other, that will be revealed below. I understand about college and school in general. Right about now, I sure wish I was still in college or high school . . . no wait, under the circumstances I do not wish I was in high school. I worked at the same place I do now then. And college I didn't work for a year and a half due to my job closing. I worked at school, folding and separating papers, painting the building, and a couple times a week I helped out at a used book store. Between them I barely made enough to feed me and keep gas in my car . . . when gas was 1.05 a gallon on average. But it was so much less stressful than these last couple of months at work.

Atlan2007 – Two good guesses and both ones that I considered. The first was rejected for the reasons outlined below in my response to Elaina Daae. As to the other, well, you'll just have to wait and see.

Elaina Daae – A good guess and one I considered. There was a problem with it . . . it would have required someone locating witch relatives of Andy and if Wyatt couldn't save Vicki than Andy's only blood witch relatives (besides his kids) would be his niece and nephew almost as far as Wyatt was to his first cousin.

* * *

Chapter Nineteen – One Last Shot

"It worked with Melinda," Prue commented, trying to hold back panic. "Why didn't it work with Vicki?"

"Maybe it only works one per person," Wyatt suggested. "Someone else will have to try it." He had other ideas, but that one made the most sense. He walked back to the paper with the spell and picked it up. Turning back around her addressed Prue. "Aunt Prue, do you want it?"

Prue nodded and turned to Andy. "Can't have anything easy, can we?"

Andy smiled. For them, easy was never in the equation.

Wyatt walked over and held the spell out for Prue to read. He still had his reservations about if Prue was enough of a part of this reality yet.

Andy held out his hands and Prue held hers out over his. Reading from the spell in Wyatt's hands Prue chanted. "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine. Our souls forever now entwine. Life and death may come to pass, our souls forever will attach. From now and to eternity, breathe life to this soul so dear to me."

In the instant Prue finished Andy went from being almost not there to being completely solid. He pulled Prue into a hug, relieved. As they separated they both turned their eyes to their daughters.

Wyatt walked away and first looked down at Pat and then Vicki. "Clearly someone else is going to have to use spell on you. Who wants to?"

"I can do it," Alanna announced as she pushed back against the couch. "Be nice to feel useful," she added as she stood and looked at Vicki. "Vicki?"

Vicki grinned. She held out her hands, again.

Prue and Andy watched, apprehensive. Paige and Henry watched as Alanna held out her hands, not as worried at Piper and Leo, especially Piper had been, but still concerned.

Looking at the paper Wyatt held out, Alanna read, ""What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine. Our souls forever now entwine. Life and death may come to pass, our souls forever will attach. From now and to eternity, breathe life to this soul now dear to me."

When Vicki turned solid, Chris noticed something odd. "She's still confusing. Is that just normal?"

Melinda laughed. "Yeah, pretty much."

Vicki stuck her tongue out, feeling playful for once.

Next to her, Alanna rolled her eyes. With a smile at Vicki she commented, "Guess that makes us closer than normal cousins."

Vicki grinned. "I guess so."

Pat stood and looked around. More often than her exuberant sister, the quiet one, she almost wondered if she had been forgotten. "My turn?"

Janice pushed herself to a standing position. "Allow me."

"Thanks," Pat replied as she held out her hands.

As Wyatt held out the paper for Janice to read, Janice held her hands over Pat's. "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine. Our souls forever now entwine. Life and death may come to pass, our souls forever will attach. From now and to eternity, breathe life to this soul now dear to me."

Pat was solid. They had done it.

* * *

And now, that they have those from the "Witch Hunts" reality all solid, there is someone else whose situation has been in question for any part of the episode including Paige and family . . . or Vicki for that matter, since she really wants to meet him. Why has Hank been gone for so long? More to come.

A note for Cirolane - While they are no longer disappearing, everything is not settled yet. I am, crossing my fingers here, hoping that you will like how I end out this story despite that Melinda is no longer fading.


	20. Hank

First a thank you to my reviewers: atlan2007

Cirolane – Sorry for not responding with the last chapter. Yes, Melinda and Wyatt's powers are the same, but that will be dealt with in a later chapter, so I'd best not say much. They don't have the same genes, just sibling genes such that maybe one was conceived at little earlier or a little later and the sperm wasn't the same. No, their souls were not connected before this. Will it last? No comment. If it does, no Wyatt will not be hurt every time Melinda is. Their souls are connected not their bodies. Assuming this lasts so long as neither of them looses to a darklighter or something else that would eliminate them in more than just body, they should be fine if something happens to the other. For your next review: I imagine it would be a lot for one person, too, and didn't want it to happen. I think I already answered about the other. If one of the "soul twins" was injured or killed, the other would be hurt no more than any other person unless that injury was something permanent such as a darklighter.

gabrieldarke – Yes, your idea made sense, but while I did consider parts of it, that isn't what I chose to do. By the time you read this, you should have read the previous chapter which will answer the rest of your comments.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – By now you know why it only worked for Melinda and not Vicki. At present there is no plan for any other connection between Wyatt and Melinda besides that of normal "twins", less so actually, because they don't even know each other.

du1387 – Some of your questions about Hank will be answered in this chapter. Not knowing what all you might be wondering, I can't say all, but it should give you a pretty good idea.

lexi-charmed – You are caught up! Glad you enjoyed being able to find out most of the answers without waiting. So you agree that Wyatt's crazy idea was crazy. I was worried that people wouldn't see it the way I did, but they seem to agree. I'm glad that you like Phoebe's girls. I don't have real feel on Ladybug yet, but that's because I haven't used her much yet. Cilly's just kind of easy to get to know. And Hope, well, she has a semi-staring roll in a later episode, so I've played around with her a lot. I thought that was cute that she wanted to hug them. Knowing Cilly, she probably would have, too, but she wasn't about to get any closer with all the emotions banging around in her head. If that didn't answer your question, then yes, they will be back. As to Hank, the elders called him about the same time that Kevin showed up at the apartment, as soon as they realized what was going on. You're right about the time laps being not normal. I remember the episode you mean, but that isn't why he hasn't shown back up. I'll let him tell you that, but it's not until the next chapter.

There are times when a chapter is so much who a character is that their name is the best name for the chapter, at least the best I can come up with. For Cilly that was the chapter she was introduced in "Anti-Orb Zone". Now, it's Hank's turn, even though he was also introduced in that story as well.

* * *

Chapter Twenty – Hank

Before anyone could react, two figured began to form in blue and white orbs. One turned into the mysteriously missing Hank Mitchell. As he materialized, his eyes closed briefly and he wobbled as if he had to steady himself.

The other figured turned into Hank's grandfather, Paige's father, Sam Wilder. Twice a whitelighter, and the second time rather reluctantly, he was there to support his grandson. He saw Victor at almost the same time Victor saw him. If not for Hank he would have made a hasty retreat.

Victor saw Sam and stiffened. While it had been years since he saw the other man, he could never forget the whitelighter who had become his long dead ex-wife's lover. Over the years he had been around Sam and Patty's daughter, Paige, on so many occasions he had lost count, but not Sam. Sam he had seen only sparingly and never enough to feel comfortable around the other man.

Paige visible relaxed at the sight of her son. "Hank!"

Hank grinned as his mom ran over and hugged him tight. After several seconds of a hug so tight he threatened to close off his airways, Hank began to squirm. "Mom, you're making it hard to breathe." Thankfully he still had enough air to talk. When Paige loosened her hold, Hank tried to make light of his absence. "I was only gone for a day."

By this time Henry, Alanna, and Janice had reached them all crowding around their missing son and brother.

"You scared us," Janice told him. "Why'd they keep you?"

Hank grinned. "I stuck my nose into things they didn't want me involved in."

"Well, why'd they take you in the first place?" Alanna wanted to know.

Finally managing to escape Paige's arms, Hank put off the question. "Just a minute. Just a minute." Hank wobbled slightly and righted himself before he started across the attic saying, "I want to finally meet Aunt Prue and family."

Alanna made a face as Hank walked over to Prue, Andy, and their girls.

Hank bowed his head, a grin on his face. He raised his head, "It is an honor to meet you, Aunt Prue." Turning his attention to Andy he said, "I thank you for the sacrifice you made for my family, Uncle Andy."

Alanna turned to look at Janice. In a whispered voice she asked, "Okay, did an alien take over our little brother?"

Hank glanced back at his sister, laughter in his eyes. _An alien indeed. Really, Alanna, you have such an imagination._ A miss step, as Hank turned to looked at Pat and Vicki, caused him to wince, pain running up and down his left leg. _I really need to take a look at that. Maybe Wyatt can heal it. Too bad I can't heal myself. Wyatt's bound to tell Mom._ Hank covered up the wince quickly and grinned at Pat and Vicki. "I believe that I heard your names are Patricia and Victoria. I'm Hank."

"Actually," Pat informed him, "I go by Pat and she's Vicki. It's good to see you."

"Very good," Vicki agreed, glad to see him in front of her alive, even if she had no memories of him from her reality. Her former reality, she realized as it dawned on her that she truly was going to be able to stay here. "I'm glad you're all right."

Hank brushed it off, not realizing that she was thinking of his fate in another reality. "About the only danger I was in was dying of boredom." That was true, for a larger part of the last twenty-four hours anyway.

"That's not exactly what I meant," Vicki mumbled, but didn't elaborate.

"Something to do with the other reality?" Hank asked surprised.

Vicki nodded. "Yeah."

"Something bad," Hank trailed off, a frown on his face. "Wait, I was in the other reality?"

"Yes to both," Vicki confirmed.

"You died when we were very young," Pat informed him, not knowing a whole lot more than that considering she had been all of two when it happened.

"I see." Hank wasn't sure what to make of this news, if it even was something he needed to know.

"How about we don't talk about depressing things right now?" Melinda suggested.

Hank turned around to look at her. "You must be Melinda."

"I am," she confirmed.

"Okay," Alanna announced, "now that you have met everyone, answer my question."

* * *

So what is the answer to Alanna's question? And why is Sam there? Want to find out? Leave me a review and I will post the next chapter.


	21. Why They Called Him

First a thank you to my reviewers:

du1387 – I don't think I ever specifically say what happened to his leg, but this chapter should allow you a pretty good guess.

Cirolane – I'm undecided on Chris at this point, but if he can or not, he doesn't think he can, so he is unlikely to try. Yes, Hank can heal. No, the twins cannot heal. I may change that at some point, but for now, they cannot heal. This chapter will tell you part of what happened up there, but there is more in the next chapter.

lexi-charmed – It's going to say in this chapter that Hank isn't one hundred percent sure, but he thinks it is broken. More than that, I'll not say. Did the elders do something? Yes. He doesn't want his parents to know for the simple reason that they are his parents and though it is only by a year, he is the baby of the family. Alanna's question will be answered in this chapter. Sam's presence is partially to give support to his grandson, but there is more to it than that, but that won't show up this chapter. And yes, the other part has to do with the people from "Witch Hunts". No comment on whether or not there is still something they have to do. Yes, there will be a short conversation between Victor and Sam. I have no idea if it will sound right, but it is coming up in a later chapter.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Hank? Get himself in trouble? Please. Hank didn't get himself in trouble . . . though I bet the . . . that's the next chapter though.

angminer – Sam _can_ heal Hank's leg and that will come up. Hank wouldn't let him. I wonder where Victor and Sam ever even in the same episode? I'm thinking not, though Victor mentioned Sam at least once. Hope you like how I deal with that, but most of that will not be in this chapter.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One – Why They Called Him

Beginning to feel like a top, Hank turned around, again, this time to face Alanna. "About why they brought me up there in the first place?" It was definitely low on his list of things he wanted to talk about.

"Yes," Alanna confirmed. Despite only a few minutes difference, she was the oldest and somehow that made a lot of difference. She wasn't sure why, but she had always felt it was her job to protect her younger siblings, especially her year younger brother. She couldn't do that very well if she didn't know what was going on and it was quite clear to her that something was going on.

"First," Hank said as he walked over to the couch, realizing that standing on his feet was not going to work much longer. He slumped down on the couch next to Chris and asked, "Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up at three in the morning to our next door neighbors' practice session and not be able to get back to sleep?"

Alanna nodded. "Of course. We did that yesterday." It was a frequent occurrence, their next door neighbor having no understanding of the fact that everyone else was asleep at that time and also connections with someone in the San Francisco city government so that all complaints fell on deaf ears.

"Well, I haven't been to sleep since then," Hank informed her, seeing as that was only a minor thing and it explained his need to sit down.

"Why ever not?" Alanna asked, alarmed.

"It was part of their tests," Hank informed her, yawning.

"Tests?" Paige asked, not liking the idea that the elders were doing tests on her baby.

"Yep," Hank agreed, the fatigue starting to get to him now that he was relaxed enough to sit down. "They wanted to see how someone born part whitelighter would deal with not having whitelighter powers." A failure in Hank's opinion, but it hadn't killed him. The first parts of the tests had been so bad that at least they had abandoned that part of the idea. No way was he discussing that with his mom in hearing range. She'd just worry and he would be fine. Even Grandpa didn't know how badly off he was. He would have healed him or at least tried. Hank rather doubted his grandpa could have healed anything more than his most likely broken leg.

"That stripped your powers," Janice stated, stunned.

Hank shook his head. They had tried, they really had, but apparently his biology was such that it fought that despite that stripping his nonexistent witch powers would have been easy. Apparently biological whitelighters were a breed unto themselves, probably biological darklighters, too. "Bound."

"But you orbed here," Melinda protested. "We saw you."

"They unbound them when Wyatt cast the spell on you." Hank had never felt more relief than when he had felt his powers reintegrate themselves in his weary body only a few minutes before. Hank's eyes drifted shut.

"Why would they want to know something like that?" Pat wanted to know, a troubled thought growing in her mind.

_Because they hate us,_ Hank thought, but he didn't voice the words, relieved when someone else answered.

That someone else was Sam. "Because they are afraid of you, I think."

Victor's face grew unreadable at the reminder that Sam was there.

"Of me?" Pat asked, finding the idea ridiculous.

"No," Sam corrected, "of Halliwells with whitelighter powers. They think there are too many."

Alanna frowned at that. "Hank's the only one of the three of us with whitelighter powers, at least that we've noticed." It was a sore point with her that Hank could orb and even heal, while she could do none of it.

"And he's got all of them," Janice added, recalling one very boring day a few years before when they had just thrown the names of whitelighter powers at their brother and he had tried to use them. Without fail he had succeeded right down to the "healing" of a broken picture frame.

"Are they planning on binding Melinda, Pat, and Vicki's whitelighter powers?" Alanna asked with a skeptical look at the currently powerless trio.

Sam shook his head. "Melinda they can do nothing to. As I understand it, she is likely to gain new powers because of being twice blessed, but never anything that Wyatt has."

"Not even orbing," Melinda stated in realization. It was the one power she would truly miss, because it was the one power she actually used on a regular basis.

"No witch power," Sam conceded, not knowing if it was actually limited to that or not. "Whitelighters powers, I couldn't say. The elders have nothing to do with that. You two simply cannot share those powers."

"Why didn't you stop them?" Paige asked, demanding a response to the question that had bugged her for most of the conversation. "They could have hurt my son."

"I think they did hurt your son, Paige," Sam admitted, knowing that his grandson had tried to hide it from him, "but I did not know about it until a couple of hours ago and they grounded me until they were done with him." Which was when Wyatt had apparently found a solution to the problem.

* * *

Hoping no one minds that some of the elders are being problems. And no, it's not all. There is a story there, but it's a very slow back story, so don't worry about it right now. Depending on how fast I right it might be anywhere between two to fiv years before I get there, so really, don't worry about it. It's seasons later.

Hank didn't spend all his time up there as a guinea pig. He had more interesting things to do and _those_ things were actually why he wasn't allowed to come back until now. To find out what they were, review and let me know what you think of this chapter and what you think might be still to come.


	22. The Negotiator

First a thank you to my reviewers:

atlan2007 – Well, not all of them, but yes, some of those elders, quite stupid.

angminer – What the elders are up to will be a slow reveal, but for the present, the next two chapters should answer most of your questions.

Cirolane – Yes, that kind of surprised me, too. Yes, Paige's kids are one quarter whitelighter.

lexi-charmed – Let's see, the answer to your question on Melinda, Pat, and Vicki will be in chapter twenty-four and the answer to your question on Andy will be in chapter twenty-three. Actually, the answer to your question on Andy _is_ chapter twenty-three. Pretty much all the rest of your questions will be answered in one of those two chapters. Answering them is the second reason why Sam is here. The chapter is all about how to deal with two people who are long dead and three who don't exist, mostly the two who have been dead for almost three decades.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two – The Negotiator

"So much for Kevin's loyalty to us," Piper complained.

"If you mean the witch elder," Sam told her, recalling the young and still living elder, "he was not among those involved. I don't think he is involved very often. They treat him like a child and he takes it."

Not from what Hank had seen. What he had seen was someone who chose his battles carefully. With his eyes still closed, Hank spoke up in defense of the young elder. "He doesn't take it. He doesn't have access to all areas of Up There. They had me somewhere he couldn't go without their help. It's because he's alive. There was an elder yelling at the other elders for what was going on, but I don't know who he was." All he knew was that particular elder clearly had been in contact with his family at one point and had been impressed with them. It also appeared that the elder felt himself in their debt.

"He was the one who got me," Sam conceded. Though he could have, he didn't name the elder. It had astounded him to see him considering that same elder's full past with the family.

Hank opened his eyes and pushed himself against the back of the couch. "Sorry, Mom. I tried to stay on my feet. I'm just ready to crash and burn."

"That's all right," Paige assured him, not wanting more harm to come to her son, worried about what harm her father thought might have. "Go ahead and go to sleep."

"Not quite," Hank argued. "After they were done testing me, I had time on my hands, so I started doing research. First, I had to figure out why they wanted this info. When I found out about Aunt Prue and the whole alternate dimension thing, I researched that." _And the things I found while researching that_, Hank thought as he grinned at them. "And then I had them." Recalling the looks on the faces of most of the elders when he had informed them of his findings, Hank laughed.

Alanna looked at Janice, a worried expression on her face. The expression was mirrored on her twins face.

"I'm okay," Hank assured them. "I was just thinking of the expression on their faces when I informed then that this was their fault and they'd better be willing to help."

"It's not their fault," Melinda insisted. "It's mine."

"Nope," Hank informed her without a moment's hesitation. "If they hadn't sent Aunt Prue, Aunt Piper, and Aunt Phoebe . . ." Hank's voice trailed off as he realized someone was missing. "Where is Aunt Phoebe anyway? I'd think she'd be here."

"No one could find her," Piper informed him, worry in her voice as she was reminded that even though this was over, they still had a big problem to solve. "Her girls are looking for her and Coop."

"That doesn't sound good," Hank commented. Going back to the topic on hand he said, "Anyway, if the elders hadn't sent all of them to the future, the alternate time line wouldn't have been created and none of this would have happened."

"In my experience," Piper commented, "they don't care about things like that."

"They said they didn't have a way to keep you here," Hank told them, neglecting to mention the distinct impression he got that most of them didn't want to keep them. "The tests were in case you found one. I convinced them to give you some help if you succeeded, which is why I wasn't allowed to return until you had finished, one way or the other." _And what an uphill battle that was._ "Have you ever argued with the Cleaners?"

Piper and Paige looked at each other. In unison they exclaimed, "Yes!"

Hank wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, that was fun."

"Hank, the Cleaners hate us," Chris informed him. "They would never help."

Hank shrugged. "Once I convinced the elders that this was their fault, they put the pressure on the Cleaners." Which hadn't stopped them from arguing. They had not wanted to help, not even as little as Hank had asked.

"So what are the Cleaners going to do?" Paige asked rather skeptical. "They can't just change the last twenty-eight years."

"They aren't," Hank admitted, not that he had wanted them to. "They are altering the memories of nonmagical people who don't know about magic to include closed caskets at Aunt Prue and Andy's funerals, and a vague idea that maybe they hadn't died. The coroner for Andy was apparently magical, so they didn't need to mess with him, but for Aunt Prue, they are going to alter the coroner's memories a little more, nothing drastic, but then we probably don't want that anyway. We have to invent a reason why they have been away so long and why they 'faked' their deaths, but at least it's plausible that they weren't actually dead."

"You have been busy," Prue commented, a bit impressed.

_I was bored and I wanted to help. _Hank shrugged. "Nothing much else to do Up There. Besides, I'm a member of this family, too. I wasn't going to lose family without a fight either. I couldn't actually find a way to keep them here, but I could make it easier if you guys did, so that's what I did."

"Thank you," Andy smiled at him.

Having said what he needed to, Hank yawned, again. "Okay, I am going to sleep now. Grandpa has a message from them." Hank leaned back against the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

* * *

Okay, did anyone see that one coming, the Cleaners I mean? I have my theories about them. If anyone is interested in those theories and how they relate to this story, just let me know in your comment and I will explain my theory on why (besides the obvious of they hadn't been invented) they weren't around when magic revealed got Prue killed and such stuff instead of the Cleaners fixing it.


	23. Andy Makes a Choice

First for my reviewers:

Cirolane – Yes, the stupid logical reason would be that they hadn't been invented yet. And no, my reason isn't anything to do with Prue must die for Paige to become Charmed or something like that. So that I only explain it once, I'll put it below.

atlan2007 – While that is an interesting idea, it is one I never considered. And no, the elder in question was not Odin, though I can see how you could come to that idea. Somehow, I cannot see Odin yelling though. Not one hundred percent sure what I am going to do with Odin, but rest assured I will do something with him. This elder was not seen much, and he once informed Piper that he was against her and Leo's marriage. I loved her response after Roland said, "No offence," and she said, "Offense taken."

lexi-charmed – I wondered if you would recall that conversation. That was how I decided exactly how I was going to handle the cleaners here. They always seemed sinister. I will be putting a full explanation of which idea I decided to use, since I did consider two on there, below this. Yep, blame it on the elders is definitely a good thing to do, especially when Melinda doesn't need all that guilt. She needs to be more careful, no matter what, but she doesn't need all that. And yes, when I read your other review (I think it was for part one) I thought of these chapters. And yes, Melinda will be the hardest to explain, but I have an idea for that which starts with the fact that Wyatt was born in the manor with no none relatives living to tell the tale (I don't recall if the demons were still alive). As for the elder, I haven't seen much of Sandra, but I can't see her yelling either. Also, this elder was someone they would have thought unlikely to help and she seems like (other than Kevin and two or three now dead elders) the most likely to help. This elder was one who openly admitted to objecting to Piper and Leo's wedding, though I saw nothing that said he had a problem with the half-whitelighters. Do you remember Roland in OMG?

du1387 – You may eventually get a recounting of what happened up there, but not in this episode, because there is no way Hank, who doesn't even want his grandfather to know for sure if he has a broken leg, is going to say in front of his parents. Mostly though, they tried to strip his whitelighter powers and his powers fought back. The stress badly injured his body because it tried to do a sort of tug of war on him. When they gave up, no one involved offered to heal him. They temporarily bound his whitelighter powers to see how that went and it didn't offer any problems, so they left it that way until they allowed him to come back. Somewhere after the binding (and thus not knowing what all went on before) Roland from OMG showed up and discovered what they were up to. He started yelling at them and first got Hank out of there and then went and got Sam. Hank didn't let on that he needed help and did a pretty good job of acting while Roland was around. He had learned that the reason they did this had to do with relatives from an alternate reality, so he decided to find out what caused the alternate reality. Once he learned this he came up with a plan to help out as much as he could, which was using the cleaners. Hope that explains all of that.

First, for anyone who wants a better explanation of Hank's time up there, I tried to explain that to du1387 above.

Now, to explain my theory on the cleaners that I am working with here. Just went through the two episodes with the cleaners and first I will put in everything that the show actual told us. The cleaners claimed to be neutral. This is only mentioned as such in "Forget-Me-Not". In "Crimes and Witch-Demeanors" it is stated that the tribunal (first mentioned here) created them and gave them the power to erase memories and to change reality. Frightening really. The tribunal seems to only be in this episode. If I am wrong feel free to correct me, but if it is the actors are different and the searches I did didn't reveal much. The tribunal is made up of two demons and two elders whose tie breaker is something Leo says the girls don't want to know. Presumably since it's Leo, that means he actually knows what that is. They said they were under orders not to deal with the girls after what happened in "Forget-Me-Not". Another fact is that both times they "fixed" things, someone was going to end up either dead or nonexistent. Lexi has seen my thought process on this, so a lot of this will be familiar to her. The tribunal was created or existed, whenever. The cleaners were demons who kept in the background, wreaking havoc by deleting and altering memories, perhaps kin to my demon Archemneme from "Chris Perry's Favorite Relative" since that is pretty much how he works, but they were more human looking (he had green skin, green wire hair, and question marks for eyes). They had a different name, something more demonic. This worked well for the underworld, this secret weapon of theirs. Then, something happened. There was a battle between the demons and members of the line of Warren witches, someone we don't know anything about, but has their name either on the family tree or was mentioned in the spell the girls wrote to destroy the source. If I need to I will come up with a specific witch. The battle was won by the Warren witch or witches, but made a really bad mess of exposing magic (the demons' fault, because I feel like it). There was innocents involved, so they couldn't just back down. Anyway the tribunal met and the idea was thought of to make neutral beings that could fix the situation and future situations. The demons conspired to use their demonic cleaners in this position, so that the underworld could control how things where cleaned up. The cleaners didn't like this idea, but they weren't given a choice and they took it out on the Warren's and through them the Halliwells and other lines from the Warren one. They had to fake neutrality and there were safety spells placed on them to keep them from being exactly what they were, demonic, or from being too much on the side of good. They did as they had to and cleaned up magical messes, but when it came to the Warren line, they only cleaned up if it hurt the Warrens / Halliwells. They also cleaned up in such a way to hurt them.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Three – Andy Makes a Choice

All other eyes turned to Sam, except for Sam's where were turned on Victor. "I won't stay long."

Victor was silent for several long seconds. Finally, he asked, "Did you help my daughter?"

"I didn't know about any of this until a couple of hours ago," Sam replied regretfully. "I couldn't even help my grandson. One of the elders had already done that. And Hank's the one who negotiated to get the Cleaners help."

Victor considered this and nodded. "Fine, just deliver your message." He wondered what Sam would have done if he had said to leave now, but there had been too many years that had passed. As long as Patty didn't come into the conversation, he figured he could manage to deal with Sam. He had two whitelighter, or rather former whitelighter son-in-laws now. If he could manage to deal civilly with Sam, dealing with them would be easy.

Sam directed his attention to Andy. "Andrew David Trudeau."

Andy turned to look at Prue with a wry look on his face. "Why do I feel like I'm five-years-old and have my hand stuck in the cookie jar?" When Prue smiled, Andy hugged her to him and turned back to face Sam. "If that was a question then yes, that is me."

"It wasn't a question," Sam denied. "Besides we've met."

"Yes, sir," Andy agreed. "I just don't really know how much my memories might count for on that account."

"Most likely the majority of your memories before the event that lost you to this world originally are the same," Sam informed him."

Andy frowned at the awkward wording of the statement. Replaying it in his head, he said, "I am assuming you mean the darklighter."

"Yes," Sam confirmed.

Andy wasn't sure what this might be about. He'd only just managed to survive along with his two daughters and niece and now he was being singled out. "What is it you want with me?"

"You have a choice to make," Sam told him. "I think I know what choice you will make, but I have instructions to ask anyway."

"What choice is that?" Andy asked, not sure why he was suddenly apprehensive. Surely if Sam thought he knew the answer, one answer at least was a good one.

"Whether you wish to remain a whitelighter," Sam told him and then rephrased it, "or maybe return to being one would be a better way of putting it."

For a second Andy thought that was both options, but then he heard the end of Sam's statement. "And my other option?"

"To be fully mortal, again," Sam informed him, "no powers, but alive."

"What's the catch?" Andy asked. At the moment either option sounded good to him for different reasons.

Sam sighed. "If you become a whitelighter, again, the elders in this reality will not be held to the agreement you had with the elders in the other, whatever that agreement was."

Andy stilled. "In other words, I lose my family." Now, he understood why Sam was so sure he knew what Andy would choose.

Sam nodded.

"All my charges have other whitelighters in this reality anyway," Andy said, thinking allowed. "I can find another way to help people." Protecting people was what he did. No amount of powers would ever change that and a lack of powers wasn't about to do that either.

"Just so we are clear," Sam smiled, "what is your choice?"

"Just so we're clear," Andy informed him, using the same words on purpose, "while innocents are very important to me, there is more than one way to fight for them, to protect them. There is no way I will willingly give up my family. I died for Prue. I think it's time I lived for her. I chose mortality."

* * *

Andy's made his choice, but he isn't the only one who needs to make one. Prue has to decide if she wishes to live or not and despite Hank making it easier, it would still be really hard to just announce that Prue and Andy are alive with two daughters and Piper has another kid. Find out what those choices are in the next chapter.


	24. Figuring Things Out

First a thank you to my reviewers:

du1387 – Yeah, Prue's decision was a give me after they found a way to fix everything, but it did have to get mentioned. I'm glad the explanations helped. I like the idea that the cleaners are demons, too. It makes so much sense.

TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – Yeah, Andy's choice wasn't that hard to make. He might have chosen to remain a whitelighter had he been allowed to stay with his family.

lexi-charmed – Was Andy's choice right? Well, I like it. Had I thought the elders as I have them would let him stay with his family and remain a whitelighter, I might have done that, but I didn't think that was happening. As he said, this won't keep Andy from helping people. He'll just find another way of doing it. What's Prue going to decide is in the first couple of paragraphs. The girl's powers will be addressed as well. As for Prue's Charmed status, that won't be dealt with in this episode. I will deal with it eventually, but not yet.

piperspeanut – Okay, it may be a while before you get here, or it may be soon, but I figured since you are reviewing I will post responses. I'm glad you liked the chapter with Phoebe's girls. They're fun. Well, Cilly and Hope are fun. Ladybug's kind of serious. As to Steve, well if you don't like him, I'm doing a good job. He's no idiot and he's very evil. I hope you enjoy the next few chapters. I like people who are suckers for the little button at the bottom of the page. I'm glad you liked how I handled Prue and Victor's reunion. Someone mentioned that I should compare the situation to that and I agree that it works and it is so funny to do. Freezing husbands when there is a demon attack is never a good thing.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Four – Figuring Things Out

A smile on his lips, Sam admitted, "That's what I thought you would choose." Andy taken care of, Sam turned to Prue. "Prue, you already know you have your powers back, but there are a few surprises waiting. In this reality, short though the rest of your life was, you developed a power you don't have. Have fun with that." Sam hesitated and looked at her, "I am assuming you have chosen to remain alive."

"Yeah," Prue confirmed, "I've chosen to remain alive. Another power? And when do I combine with this other Prue anyway."

"When the end of the twenty-four hours is up," he told her, "so soon."

Pat blew into the air, trying to see if her powers were back. When nothing happened she turned to Sam. "What about my powers, and Vicki's?"

"You will get them back on your own," Sam told her, "but you will get them back minus the whitelighter powers."

"So no orbing?" Vicki asked disappointed, just to be sure.

"Orbing's not so great," Hank mumbled from the couch, his eyes still closed.

"Says the guy who actually can orb," Alanna teased. Having never had whitelighter powers, it had struck her as odd that her younger brother did.

Vicki ignored both of them and look at Sam for an answer.

"There is a remote chance that your biology might overcome the elders bind," Sam informed her, though his voice sounded doubtful. "Since you were born part whitelighter, they can't just take your wings." Sam chuckled, "Technically, you don't have any."

Vicki frowned. "They didn't happen to mention what my powers were, did they?"

"Sorry," Sam told her with a shake of his head. "They didn't."

"Okay," Vicki nodded absently. "Thanks for telling me."

"I guess that's it," Sam decided, having delivered all his news.

"What about me?" Melinda asked.

Sam sighed. "As I said earlier, your powers are not anything they can mess with."

"Just because I'm twice blessed," Melinda mumbled disbelieving. When had being twice blessed ever done anything for her.

Sam shook his head. "More because you share powers identical to the ones Wyatt has. Just as they can't take your powers from you, they can't give you back your powers either. You are both witch and whitelighter, so you could gain powers from either of those, but it is very unlikely that you can get back any of your previous powers." He looked at Victor across the room. "I didn't do anything to help them now, but I did try to protect them from the demon that killed their mother. I'm sorry things came about how they did, but . . ." Sam looked at Paige briefly before turning back to Victor, "I can't regret the results." With that, Sam orbed out.

Once Sam was gone, Chris looked at Melinda and Wyatt. He scowled. "Mom, remember that conversation we had after the spider demon bit me?"

Piper smiled, remembering. "Yes."

"I think I just doubled that," Chris informed her.

Paige started laughing. "Chris, kindly remembered that Wyatt and Melinda are part whitelighter."

Chris gave her a look. "I'm well aware of that."

"You, dear boy," Paige informed him, "are half elder. If they ever try anything, lord it over them."

Wyatt looked at his aunt curiously and then at Chris. "You know what. I want your trip to the past on DVD."

"What?" Chris looked at him, confused. "Why?"

"Because that is the only way I am ever going to figure out what on earth you are talking about," Wyatt informed him, grinning.

Piper shook her head, smiling. She turned to look at Prue. "So what are you going to do? You are welcome to stay at the manor."

Prue looked at Andy. After a nod from Andy, Prue replied. "We talked about it last night. Though at the time we figured we wouldn't really ever be able to come back here, because of the whole dead thing, it's probably a good idea for the moment."

"What?" Piper wanted to know.

"We've been living in Boston for the last sixteen years," Prue told her, "so we know the land. It no doubt has differences, but it's familiar, so for the present we are going to go there to live. Maybe once people start learning that we are alive and accepting it, maybe then we might come back, but for now, Boston."

Piper walked over to her and hugged her. "I'll miss you, but at least I know I can see you."

Prue hugged her back. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Piper let go and turned to Melinda. "What about you? Your situation is a little different."

Melinda looked around and sighed. "I need some time to think. I'll be around, but for now, I just need to get used to everything. I'll keep in contact," she promised. _I just need to get use to being here and everything that is different, because of me,_ she thought, but she couldn't say that. "I don't know where I'll go, but I'm pretty sure, I'll end up back here."

_And that's what matters,_ Piper thought as she smiled. "You better keep in contact."

"I will," Melinda promised. _If I can help it, I will never be out of contact with you, again._

Piper smiled, again. She had her promise. "Why doesn't everyone come downstairs so more people can find a seat? I'll fix something for dinner."

"Sounds good," Prue agreed.

Everyone started out of the room except Hank and Melinda. Hank didn't move when Chris got up from the couch. He was too tired.

Melinda stood in the middle of the attic and closed her eyes. In her mind she could see the attic as it was in her reality. In her mind the walls were lined with shelves filled with potions that disappeared with the chanting of a spell. There were chests containing all sorts of magical paraphernalia. There were chalk outlines of triquetras all over the floor, since the walls were full. There was a picture attached to the door taken decades before of four friends, four sisters who didn't yet know the full identity of the youngest. So very many memories, and yet the chance was here for new ones. It was so much to take in Piper waited until everyone else was through the door before she started for it. She was almost out the door when Melinda's eyes opened. "Mom."

Piper stopped and turned to face her daughter.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Melinda told her.

Piper smiled before she turned back around and headed down the stairs. _Happy indeed._

* * *

The story isn't quite done. There is an epilogue left. I'll post the epilogue and the prologue of the next episode, "The Demon of Confusion" once I have reviews on this one. Hope everyone enjoyed it.


	25. Epilogue: Another Reunion

First a thank you to my reviewers for the previous chapter:

piperspeanut – It had to come up. It just had to. I loved that line in "Spin City" and I thought it very appropriate here. Well, there is this one more "chapter", though technically it's the epilogue. I will be posting the prologue for the next episode at the same time though. Once you are done with this, be sure to check out "The Demon of Confusion".

Cirolane – Yeah, I knew you were going to be disappointed there. When I originally planned the episode I didn't know if they were going to stick around, but ultimately over the course of the last year that it's been in planning, I decided to end it this way. Wyatt's going to have to wait on the DVD, but I so wish I could actually give it to him. Maybe some time I'll write one of those stories where the Charmed Ones and their families find out there is a TV show about them and Wyatt can get his hands on a DVD set of season six. Yeah, I like that idea. It would be fun. Glad you like Chris statement. That is my favorite statement in the chapter, followed closely by Wyatt's about the DVD.

du1387 – Once they figured out a way to keep her family, there was no way Prue would decide otherwise. Hank will ask Wyatt to heal him, after a nap and once he can get Wyatt alone. As to Melinda, well, I sort of describe some of that below, but it will be a long trip. For next several episodes she won't even be in San Francisco or California for that matter.

Second, a thank you to all my reviewers:  
For Part 1: Cirolane, CharmedNeptune47, TaintedDarkInuShemeeko, Phoenix D. Tally, piperspeanut, du1387, gabrieldarke, perrycharmed, D. Cicero, Love Angel 1705, PiperPaigeP3, atlan2007, and lexi-charmed  
For Part 2: Cirolane, atlan2007, perrycharmed, TaintedDarkInuShemeeko, piperspeanut, du1387, gabrieldarke, CHARMEDLEGACY, PiperPaigeP3, angminer, Elaina Daae, and lexi-charmed,

Third, a thank you to all the people who put this story on their favorites:  
For Part 1: TPO3, PiperPaigeP3, Quartzce, JayneyHunter and perrycharmed  
For Part 2: perrycharmed and PiperPaigeP3

Fourth, a thank you to all the people who put this story on their alerts:  
For Part 1: CharmedNeptune47, gabrieldarke, mclaughlin, bookofshadows888, Love Angel 1705, hinormajean, minorshan, PiperPaigeP3, LadyWarrior, atlan2007 and JayneyHuner  
For Part 2: JayneyHunter, Tinasan, gabrieldarke, perrycharmed, StargateAngel101 and PiperPaigeP3,

Fifthly, a thank you to all the people I can't name, because I don't know which people who have me in their favorite authors or author alerts are reading this series, but thank you all the same. I can be pretty sure that the following fall under one of the two catagories though, Cirolane, TaintedDarkInuShekeeko and du1387.

The epilogue takes place a few days after the rest of the story. Prue, Andy, and their kids are currently living in the manor while their look for a place in Boston as they planned. Vicki is annoyed that they are back to the don't answer the door rules, though it only counts if Prue or Andy are in view, just in case someone sees them before they are ready to explain. Pat has made it her mission while they are there to see if she can find demons that were fought in her reality that aren't in this reality's Book of Shadows. She's making a list. If you've read my story "Imaginary Fiends (and Real Friends)" you've run into one of the demons on her list. It's the one she sent the boys after. Melinda said her good-byes and has taken off. It is her plan to find a place to stay for a while until she is ready to deal with everything. Piper made sure she had some food for the first couple of days and a cell phone, so that they don't lose track of her.

Wyatt and Chris contacted their friend, Kali Nicolae to see if she could get them in contact with Mark and Beth Trudeau, the brother and sister they met in "A Friend In Need". After hearing the situation, Kali set up a meeting with Mark, Beth, and their parents so that they could find out about Andy being alive, again. She did not tell them what was going on. Who knows why they think she invited their whole family over. She is still dating Gary Johnson, so they know it isn't anything to do with Mark.

Now, that I have set the table, I hope you enjoy the epilogue.

* * *

Epilogue – Another Reunion

Thursday, February 18, 2027

Thursday, later that week, Chris led Andy down the hallway of an apartment complex toward the apartment where Chris and Wyatt's friend, Kali Nicolae lived. The hallway outside the apartment seemed almost confining as Andy walked behind Chris. It wasn't hard to imagine his little brother with kids, but with half witch kids was another matter entirely. He knew that in his old reality his brother had married and had at least one child, but the entire family was killed in a car accident not long after Andy had been reunited with Prue. As a result Andy knew very little about his brother's family, so not even if this was the same family.

Chris stopped at the door to the apartment and knocked. He turned and looked at Andy. "Are you ready for this?"

Andy offered him a nervous smile. "Are you sure they are there?"

Chris nodded. "Kali invited the family over. She thought neutral ground would be best."

The knob turned catching both of their attentions. Kali stuck her head out and smiled. "Hi, you must be Wyatt and Chris' new uncle. I'm Kali."

Andy smiled. "Andy."

"So how are we doing this?" Kali asked slipping out the door, closing the door behind her. "Should I just announce him, or let them see for themselves or what?"

"Kali," Chris looked at her with annoyance.

"What?" Kali indicated the door with her chin. "There's only so much preparing one can do before you just have to plunge in. I told them that my friend, Chris, was joining us for dinner. I also told them that recently some odd events had given you some new relatives. I indicated that you had something to tell them and I warned them that I had some news for them that would shock them, but I can't think of any other way to go about this, then to just do it."

Chris sighed. "Give me a few minutes with them." He looked at Kali. "Take him somewhere out of sight of the kitchen." Looking at Andy he added, "If that's all right with you."

Andy nodded. "This is rather nerve wrecking."

Chris entered the apartment and headed into the small kitchen / dining room. The four Trudeaus were seated at four of the six seats. Mikelle Zealand stood in a corner watching him enter. Chris looked at her surprised. "Mikelle, what are you doing here?"

"What? I'm not allowed to eat with them?"

Chris shook his head quickly. "That's not what I meant. I just didn't expect you."

Mikelle shrugged. "I was apprised of the situation and asked to come."

Chris nodded and turned to the family. "Hi."

Beth smiled at him. "Hi, Chris."

Mark, Ben, and Alice added their greetings.

Not sure where to start Chris breathed in. "I was wondering what you know about whitelighters, full ones anyway, how they become one."

"Something about being really good or something," Mark said a little unsure. "I really haven't thought much about it."

"I have," Ben informed them.

"Okay, so what's your take on it?"

"Whitelighters were once people who in life helped others. When they die they are given the chance to keep helping others. The thing is when I learned about whitelighters I wondered about my older brother."

Chris looked at him surprised. Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

"He was a police officer and he wanted to help people, to do good. He dated your aunt, you know."

Chris nodded. "I did know that."

"He died in the manor. Do you know anything of what happened?"

"Only a little. Mom and her sisters were under attack. Aunt Phoebe had a premonition of your brother dying, so they tried to keep him out of the house, but in the end he died saving their lives."

Ben nodded. "Sounds like Andy. Other's first. Is there anyway to find out if he became a whitelighter? Alice has tried summoning him, but she has never been successful."

Chris gulped. "Actually that's kind of why I am here."

Ben frowned. "Because of Andy?"

Chris nodded. "I was told two stories. They began the same. After your brother died, he did become a whitelighter. He was told not to contact anyone he used to know."

Ben sighed. "I guess I can lay it to rest then."

"It doesn't end there."

When Chris didn't say anything more Ben rose to his feet. "Please go on."

Chris nodded. "About eighteen years ago one of his charges was under attack and he tried to help her. She survived, but he was shot with a darklighter's arrow."

Ben sucked in a deep breath. "Then, my brother is gone." He sat back down in his chair, stunned, as if this news was not something he was prepared for despite all the years gone by.

"He was."

Ben frowned and looked up at Chris. "Was?"

Chris nodded. "Late last week my brother and I were preparing for a special event with our parents. Just before we left a triquetra opened on our wall and five people were dumped out. They had just suffered the loss of two people very important to them and were attempting to travel back in time to fix it. Unfortunately for them, they failed in that attempt and literally changed worlds. They were from an alternate reality created by my mother and two of my aunts shortly after the death of your brother."

"What has this to do with Andy?"

"One of those five was your brother, Andy."

Ben's mouth opened and closed several times before staying closed. "Andy is alive then?"

"Since Aunt Prue had a counterpart in this reality, ghost though that was, she was able to merge with her counterpart, gaining the memories from her. I sympathize having gone through the experience myself. We had a bit more trouble keeping the other four, but in the end we were able to save them."

"Andy and Prue. Who are the other three?"

Chris grinned. "Well, I seem to have gained two cousins and an older sister."

"Two cousins? Andy and Prue's?"

Chris nodded. "Pat and Vicki."

"Can I see them? I'm going to guess that it isn't forbidden if you are telling me."

Chris nodded again. "Your brother is with Kali in another room."

Ben was out of his chair in seconds and to the door only a moment later. Chris followed him out of the room and around the house until he found the den where Kali and Andy were talking. Both looked up at the sound of someone coming. Andy was to his feet quickly looking at his brother tentatively. Ben stared at him for several seconds and then he ran over to him and hugged him. "Don't ever do that, again, Andy." Ben told him as if they hadn't seen each other in days instead of decades and as if some minor misadventure had separated them instead of Andy's death. "Don't ever do that, again."

END of EPISODE

* * *

This story may be over, but there is more stories to come. Check out the next episode, "The Demon of Confusion" right here on fanfiction. A demon messes with Piper, Leo, Wyatt, and Chris by changing around their bodies and their powers. That's right, Leo has powers, for this episode anyway.


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